


The Patron Saint of Switchblade Fights

by kris_king_of_the_losers



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29231214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kris_king_of_the_losers/pseuds/kris_king_of_the_losers
Summary: Neil stared at Kevin in disbelief. “I’m sorry, the first nine hours of my what?” He demanded, searching Kevin for any signs of head trauma or intoxication.“Your immortality,” Kevin repeatedly impatiently. “Coming back to life wasn’t a fluke, that’s going to keep happening every time you die.”Neil stared at Kevin for a long moment, wondering if he was being subjected to someone’s idea of a bad joke. Kevin wasn’t stupid, no matter how desperately he was attempting to prove otherwise.“You’re not serious.”Kevin’s returning scowl was enough to convince Neil he was in fact serious. “You’ve already accepted that you died and came back once. How is it any harder to accept that it might happen again?”
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 53
Kudos: 90





	1. Cigarettes and (Blunt Force) Trauma

Neil didn’t smoke.

It was well past midnight as he was standing in line to buy a pack of cigarettes, and yet he didn’t smoke. Not in the traditional sense at least. Not often enough that he thought it counted. Neil didn’t need the nicotine, and he wasn’t looking to pick up a bad habit, but change had driven him here. Change left a lot of room for _what ifs_ and _if onlys_ and those had ceased to be anything but painful in the wake of his mother’s death.

Cigarettes were a comfortable, familiar ritual that he’d fallen into without quite noticing. A new name, a new country, and a pack of cigarettes; it was as close as he could get to a home. As close as he could get to his mother. The scent of the smoke, as morbid and gruesome as it was, was the only thing that remained of his mother in the world. Neil could almost taste the stench of burning flesh clinging to the back of his throat with every inhale, could almost see the flames of her funeral pyre echoed in the smoldering ember of the lit cherry.

Mandanā wouldn’t appreciate the homage; Neil knew that much. Were she still alive, he’d be sporting fresh bruises for taking such a foolish, needless risk and clinging to the dead. But she wasn’t, and so Neil was in line to buy cigarettes.

The fluorescent lights of the convenience store hummed faintly overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow light, and highlighting the dead flies that lined the glass shades. The floor beneath Neil’s feet was slightly tacky, and made a faint crackling sound underneath his shoes, as he moved up a space in line, the two people in front of him doing the same. The tired looking cashier barely recognized the change in customers, practically half asleep as she rang up a pack of tums and three, questionably fresh corn dogs.

Neil impatiently ran a hand through his hair, his paranoia making the wait in line almost unbearable before he grimaced at the texture. It was crunchy again. Likely from the latest round of dye. He’d forgone the bleached blond of his last identity for a jet black in preparation for the summer months when there was no available college campus he could skulk around. On a college campus, the unnatural hair color marked him as one of them, but outside of the school year it was too eye catching to be safe. With his new documents already completed, changing his appearance now would be a greater risk than he was comfortable with, but something had to be done. Dead hair didn’t hold dye, and he was rapidly approaching the threshold.

The chiming of the cash register drew Neil’s attention back to the front and he watched the customer grab his plastic sack of goods as he was handed his receipt, before meandering out into the waiting night. Neil itched to do the same but took another sticky step forward, so he was next in line. The bell above the door chimed again, tinny, and easily grating, announcing the arrival of another customer.

Neil appraised the figure subtly from the corner of his eyes. He was tall, cocksure, and well built, strutting into the store with blatant overconfidence. A red skullcap made him instantly distinguishable from the other customers milling about, and his leather jacket bulged in the back, poorly concealing a handgun.

The potential for danger that handgun posed sent an electrified current of adrenaline through Neil, and he instantly went on alert. He tracked the man's progress, noting that the more confident his body language grew, the more skittish his gaze became. Watery, light eyes cataloged every camera and mirror and sweat beaded up on his red tinged forehead as he grew flushed. His movements were jerky, as he struggled to pull merchandise off the shelves nonchalantly. Neil focused the progress of the man’s hands, noting where they were every second, his efforts aided greatly by the contrast between the man’s pale hands and dark jacket. They were shaking, either from nerves or anticipation, and Neil’s lip curled in contempt. Men who needlessly armed themselves shouldn’t be anything resembling jumpy. They got reckless and sloppy in their panic, and innocent people always paid for the mistakes with their lives.

The second the man’s shoulders squared decisively, and his hand headed towards his back waistband for the gun, Neil was already moving, intent on removing the threat.

He leapt towards the man as fast as he knew how to move, and aimed low, tackling his legs just beneath his center of gravity. The two of them went down, hard, in a painful tangle of limbs and crashing of shelves. Neil landed on top and pressed it to his advantage: flipping the man onto his front, jamming his knee harshly between his shoulder blades, and slamming the man’s head against the soda-drenched linoleum.

There was a screaming all around him, the loudest coming from the cashier, and the clamor of more shelves falling around them, as Neil wrestled for the gun. Camera flashes went off in blinding bursts of light, and the doorbell chimed insistently in one long droning tone as others scattered in their panic. Neil grabbed the man’s arm while he was too dazed to resist, and wrenched it back, snapping the wrist in the process. The man howled while the gun clattered to the floor, and Neil dove for it. Surprise had given him the advantage, but the gun was tantamount to victory.

He came up on his knees, gun secured in his hands, when a sudden click made him freeze. Neil looked up, staring down the barrel of a gun from a second, unaccounted for assailant. He had only seconds to curse before an explosion of pain dropped him to the floor.

His mother’s cold voice chided his stupidity as he died.

**. . .**

It was always the same, dying and coming back to life.

The first time Neil had died had been well over two-thousand years ago, under a different sky, and a different name, at the hands of his father, Nathan. Nathan had made it as painful as he knew how, watching Neil bleed out with undisguised glee, onto the black sands of a small island in the Cyclades. By the end, Neil had drawn his last breath eager for oblivion.

The gods, however, had other plans. While his father’s Chthonic deities had soundly rejected him, his mother’s had not, and Neil had awoken inexplicably at the behest of Ameretat in the mortal realm, writhing in agony from the seawater of the rising tides anointing his still-healing wounds. Life hadn’t been finished with him.

Two and a half thousand years later and it still wasn’t. Neil’s most recent revival happened without the fanfare of the first, and he fought to keep his body unresponsive as his senses returned and he came to face down in a pool of his own blood. The smell was terrible; the painfully shallow breaths he drew lodged the awful, coppery tang in the back of his throat.

The screaming that had echoed in his ears as he’d died hadn’t stopped, and Neil suspected that it was still the cashier. Underneath the screaming he heard pained, vitriolic cursing, and the horrible doorbell was still going off. Neil constructed a loose timeline. He’d come back faster than usual. Exceptionally useful in the moment, but he’d be paying for it later.

There was the sharp crack of something heavy connecting with flesh, and the screaming cut off in a gurgle. Neil dragged himself back to the present as a deep baritone filled the store.

“You think we’re playing around!? You see that son of a bitch on the floor?! Hand over the money, I’m not asking again!” A pained whimper from the cashier followed the blatant threat, and then came the sound of another blow.

Neil curled his toes, testing the extent of his recovery, and preparing to run when a sudden, agonizing blow set his ribs aflame. A boot: steel toed and surefooted caught him in the side, and Neil felt the all too familiar feeling of ribs breaking.

His face contorted in pain, and he held his breath to swallow the pained shout that was clawing its way up his throat. His pulse roared in his ears, and the only sensation greater than the pain was rage. Neil guessed it was the man whose wrist he’d broken, and his blood sang with the desire to pay him back in kind.

Neil just barely resisted the urge to swipe the man’s feet out from under him and snap his neck as he silently bore the indignity. If he wanted to make it out of here in time to grab his few remaining earthly possessions, he’d have to leave of his own volition. The chances of recovering instantaneously from a second bullet to the brain were slim to none, and he needed to be long gone before anyone realized that death hadn’t done more than inconvenience him.

Neil continued to play dead, swallowing his temper, until he heard the sick squeak of shoes skidding across blood and then rapidly retreating footsteps. The awful doorbell finally stopped, marking the final departure with silence, and Neil was left as the sole witness to the cashier’s sudden breakdown. He attempted to wait her out, stifling irritation and hoping she would run to the back for shelter, but as her hyperventilating only grew louder and became edged with hysteria, Neil gave up and gingerly pulled himself up onto his knees. He was too short on time to worry about one, unarmed eyewitness.

His ribs seemed to be healing slower than usual just to spite him. Neil knew he undoubtedly deserved it, but it made moving a struggle, and he had to stop and pause for breath. The linoleum beneath him was a horrific sight: brain matter lay in revolting chunks amidst the rapidly cooling blood he was kneeling in, and Neil fought back a wave of revulsion. The fact that it belonged to him did nothing to aid his efforts.

Neil’s wallet lay open, face-up near where his head had been, slowly soaking up blood into the aged leather. His forged driver’s license stared up at him condemningly, and Neil swiped it off the floor as he clambered to his feet. It felt far lighter than it had before he’d been murdered. Neil silently stewed at the added insult to injury.

He pocketed his ruined wallet, refusing to leave behind any more evidence, and booked it out of the convenience store without a backwards glance. The cashier’s blood-curdling scream at the sight of him followed Neil into the night.


	2. FBI's Most Wanted

Neil ran straight through the night and most of the morning, sticking to backroads when he could, and slowing to a less conspicuous pace when he couldn’t. He’d rinsed off with a garden hose in a suburban neighborhood sometime before the sun had risen, scrubbing at the dried blood flaking off him until his skin felt raw. Paranoia had him frantically swiping at his face with every mile, convinced that every drop of sweat was blood bound to give him away.

It never was, however, and between his pace, and the eight or so hours he’d been running, Neil guessed he’d managed about sixty miles by the time the sun was nearing its apex. He was desperately parched, and well past his limit when he finally reached a truck stop he deemed a safe distance away. His instantaneous revival was catching up with him, body demanding food and sleep to recoup the massive energy deficit, which had only increased with every mile he put behind him.

For such a large truck-stop, the parking lot was almost entirely empty. Not even the McDonald's next door was within what Neil considered a normal business threshold. It sent a cold stab of paranoia through him, and he found himself looking around furtively as he crossed the parking lot to enter the sprawling, well maintained building. The store was as empty too, save for a blatantly curious employee working the counter directly to his right.

“Welcome in,” The man greeted him cheerfully. His appearance was polished in a way that looked artificial, with his dark hair gelled solidly upright on his head, and his blindingly red polo buttoned up all the way to the collar. His smile pulled at his face too widely, making him appear manic, even as his eyes remained coolly cordial. The name tag pinned neatly to his chest read CHAD in a bold typeface.

Neil settled for nodding stiffly in acknowledgement, fighting the urge to check for blood under the cashier’s piercing gaze.

“What can I get for you today?” Chad continued; his enthusiastic persona uncracked.

“How much for a shower?” Neil bit out, reaching into his duffel bag to pull out his emergency stash of cash.

Chad smiled toothily. “Long day?” He asked ironically, as he tapped at the screen of the register terminal. “Looks like it’ll be fourteen dollars and eighty-four cents. Would you like to pay with cash or card?”

“Cash,” Neil replied, handing over a five and a ten.

Chad accepted it, tapping at the terminal again, before the cash register slid open with a soft chime. He handed Neil back a receipt and his change. “The showers are towards the back,” He told Neil, pointing helpfully in the right direction. “No one is here at the moment, so feel free to go right in. The code for the keypad is on your receipt and you’ll be door number four.”

Neil thanked him, before immediately heading in the direction Chad had pointed out, eager to be out of sight.

The doors to the showers were down a corridor to his left, right across from the travel gear and mobile tech aisle. Neil stopped briefly outside the door marked four to type in the numeric code, before going inside. It was only after he heard the lock on the door engage with a faint click that Neil finally allowed himself to relax.

His shoulders drooped, and he let out a gusty sigh as the last dredges of adrenaline and tension that had been powering him finally dissipated. He ran an exhausted hand down his face, and cracked his neck trying to alleviate his soreness before he finally bothered to look around.

The bathroom was nice for a truck-stop. Nicer than he was used to. The floor and the walls were tiled with a marbled grey, sort of granite, and a drain sat at the lowest part of the room. A vanity with a sink sat under a mirror to his far left, while a stone bench attached to the floor sat just adjacent to it and directly across from him. There was a toilet with the back pressed up against a partial privacy wall to the right, behind which Neil assumed sat the actual shower.

Neil unslung his duffel bag and felt an instant wave of relief at the action. The strap had been cutting into his shoulder, and throwing off his weight distribution, and without it he could feel his body undoing the slight damage. He tossed it haphazardly on the bench, before peeling off his sweaty clothes.

He paused to set out a fresh change in clothes and shove his gross ones into the bottom of his bag. He also grabbed a bar of soap, and then finally braved the shower.

It was narrow, and utilitarian, tiled the same as the rest of the bathroom, with two soap dispensers and a single shower head positioned high on the wall. There was a miniature soap dish affixed to the corner, and two metal bars farther down to use for support.

Neil set his soap on the dish and then turned the tap on the highest temperature it would go. The water came out cold, making him flinch, before rapidly heating up. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and relaxing under the spray. The water pressure wasn’t great, and the temperature didn’t reach near as high as he would’ve liked, but it was still an overwhelming comfort. He gave himself a few minutes to soak it in before he set about washing himself.

Once he was clean and could no longer justify lingering in the shower, Neil turned off the tap, and exited the stall.

He shook out his hair and snagged one of his cleaner t-shirts to quickly rub down with, before wrestling his change of clothes on, fighting the moisture every step of the way. He smoothed down the front of his shirt over his scars feeling the ruined skin through the thin fabric and fought the urge to layer a second shirt over it. Neil’s mother may have left nothing behind but smoke, but his father had etched himself into Neil’s skin, leaving behind a legacy more enduring than stone. His body was a patchwork quilt of scars: the greatest indicator of his true age. Cauterized brands, starburst puncture marks, and latticed scars from flayed skin, lined his torso in a damning piece of evidence. Unreplicable today, for the fact they were done with weapons that no longer existed, years before his father had finally succeeded in killing him.

In the already sticky heat of May, he wouldn’t even make it out of the parking lot before he needed a second shower if he wore multiple shirts. The urge still lingered, however, and Neil tugged the shirt slightly away from his skin to alleviate it.

Neil left the bathroom once he was fully clothed and freshened up enough to feel human again. His duffel bag was securely at his side and seemed to weigh more as the full extent of his exhaustion finally hit him. He needed food. Water too unless he wanted to pass out when his body took matters into its own hands. Even regeneration had its limits, and Neil’s frequent habit of forgoing sleep meant this was far from his first encounter with them.

He stopped by the corner stocked with groceries, and grabbed two bottles of water, a banana, and a handful of granola bars on his way to the front. He debated a coffee for several moments, staring at the industrial sized machine, before finally caving, and getting a single black coffee in the largest size they had. Ignoring the warning labels, he also dumped three additional shots of prepackaged espresso into it. A road map he only just barely remembered to snag was the last thing he deemed worthy enough to spend money on. 

For all that he’d almost forgotten it, the map was the most vital of the supplies he’d grabbed. The Feds weren’t the only pursuers he had to worry about. Neil wasn’t alone in his immortality, hadn't been since the first breath he'd drawn as an immortal, and if any of the other immortals got wind of Neil’s current situation, he didn’t doubt they’d attempt their own version of damage control. for all that they could possibly help him, Neil couldn’t risk that. He’d survived undiscovered this long by working alone and had gone through great lengths to avoid others; going so far as to keep an entire continent between them at all times. But sometime in the past month the others had all gone underground and Neil had lost track of them. To top it all off, it had been a quiet two hundred and forty-five years since their last immortal—they were due for a new one any decade now if the pattern held—and Neil had just announced to the world that immortality wasn’t a myth. He was sure if the others had anything to say about it, any immortal born into the climate Neil had created would be his responsibility. Attachments and connections were weaknesses he couldn’t afford, and a newborn immortal would be the biggest weakness of all.

Neil swallowed the panic produced by that line of thinking and returned to overly cheerful Chad still working the front, who looked up from his phone and rapidly pocketed it with a sheepish smile. “Is this going to be everything for you?” He asked, as Neil dumped everything onto the counter.

Neil opened his mouth to say yes before he thought better of it. “Do you carry cigarettes?” He asked.

Chad’s smile dimmed slightly, and he looked faintly disapproving, but nodded all the same. “We do.”

“Could I get a pack of Marlboro reds? And a lighter?”

“Of course,” Chad said, bending down behind the counter. He reemerged with the cigarettes, and a bright green, plastic lighter, and rang them up alongside everything else. He bagged everything for Neil as well, saving him the trouble, before rattling off the total.

Neil forked over the cash and was once again handed his change and receipt. He grabbed his coffee as he pocketed the rest and tucked his bag into the crook of his arm.

“Have a nice day,” Chad said cheerfully, as he surreptitiously pulled out his phone again, and Neil nodded in his direction as he shouldered open the doors.

The sweltering heat enveloped him the moment he was out of the truck-stop building, and Neil was fiercely reminded of his previous thirst. He dug one of his water bottles out of the bag, and opened it with his teeth, before chugging the contents. The water hit his empty stomach with an uncomfortable gurgle, but Neil ignored it in favor of drinking as fast as he could. He came up for air once the bottle was empty, and threw it away in the overflowing garbage can, before going for the picnic table in front of the McDonald's next door. He collapsed onto the uncomfortable metal bench and began the process of inhaling his scalding hot coffee, letting the bitter taste revitalize him and the caffeine flood his system.

What he really needed was sleep, but motels, even the shittiest among them, required ID, which would leave a trail for the police if they were still searching for him. He’d also abandoned his car, the next safest space to sleep. He was now presentable enough that if he found another residential area he could probably risk breaking into an empty house. What he needed more than sleep, however, was to get out of the state, if not the country. He ran into the same issue of ID there, however, and he needed internet access to get a hold of his contacts if he was going to go that route.

He had a lot of needs, and absolutely no way to fulfill them. Not without creating more problems in the aftermath. Close to pulling out his hair in frustration, Neil stuffed his grocery bag in the side pocket of his duffel, refusing to look at the map, or let himself eat until he had an idea of his next step. Staring off into the drab industrial landscape, however, failed to do more than make him jittery as the caffeine and lack of direction finally caught up with him.

Neil absently swirled around the last dregs of his coffee before an approaching figure caught his attention. Neil studied him intently and felt his blood turn to ice as familiarity overtook him.

The man was tall, with broad, muscular shoulders, and long legs. He walked with a single-minded determination; his green eyes locked directly on Neil. The damning Triquetra tattooed under his left eye, stark black against pale skin, confirmed what Neil already knew for fact.

Caoimhghín had found him.


	3. We've Got Company

Neil ran. His shoes slapped furiously against the tarmac as he booked it, his duffel bag swung wildly on his shoulder, and his breaths came out in a frantic staccato. He skidded around the far wall of the truck-stop, taking the corner at a recklessly fast pace, and using one hand to slingshot himself forward, inadvertently wrenching his shoulder in the process. Behind him he could hear Caoimhghín shouting and futilely pursuing him, but Neil hadn’t spent over two millennia on the run to be caught so easily.

Or not.

In front of him stood a short, pale, blond man. His body was a wall of muscle despite his utter lack of height, and in his hands was a solid, wooden baseball bat. Neil was going too fast to stop, and the man was too close to dodge. Neil collided with the bat right at the upward peak of the man’s swing, in what was undeniably a devastating blow. The introduction of an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

A sickening crunch and burst of white-hot pain informed Neil he’d broken his ribs for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, and he tumbled helplessly to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

His vision greyed at the edges as he desperately sucked at air that wasn’t there, chest heaving futilely as he struggled to gasp and clawed at the ground. He wanted to puke. He wanted to scream. His assailant loomed over him as he choked, cocking his head curiously as he surveyed Neil.

Even in his pathetic state, Neil recognized the man as surely as he’d recognized Caoimhghín, and Arnþórr’s hazel eyes catalogued him dispassionately, his curiosity quickly replaced with boredom, as Neil failed to do more than unsuccessfully attempt to breathe. The other immortals had caught up with him.

Neil struggled through thoughts made slow with pain to wonder if Arnþórr found him boring because he lived up to his expectations, or because he fell short of them. The immortality that kept them all alive also bound them together in an inexplicable web of dreams and visions of one another and had done so since the time of their first deaths. For all that Neil had avoided the others, he still knew them better than anyone else in the world due to the connection innate to his immortality.

Arnþórr Ketilsson had become immortal a scant handful of decades after the first millennium of the common era, almost fifteen hundred years after Neil. His death during Slaget ved Niså was the most notable of all the immortals, for the fact that his twin, Árni had died and come back as well. An anomaly that had yet to be replicated. Caoimhghín Ó Dalaigh too, was far from a recent addition to whatever force bound them all together and was older than Arnþórr by a little over a century. He’d joined their ranks after having been slaughtered during the Battle of Cenn Fuait.

Finally, finally the damage repaired itself enough for Neil to suck in a breath of air, and he did so with relish, his hand coming up to press against his rapidly healing ribs. Behind him he heard Caoimhghín finally catch up, and anger simmered in Neil’s chest over how easily they’d managed to ambush and corner him. His mother would’ve beat him within an inch of his life for making such a careless string of choices.

“Fuck you, did you rob the fucking MLB?” Neil demanded hoarsely, immediately on the defensive as he eyed Arnþórr’s bat with disdain. He forced himself up into a sitting position the second he was physically able to, powering through the pain and refusing to show an ounce of it. Arnþórr casually spun the bat in response, staring him down, and refusing to rise to the bait.

“Was that really necessary, Andrew?” Caoimhghín asked with a side glance as he offered Neil his hand. Neil ignored it, choosing to stand up under his own power while Caoimhghín looked affronted.

“Oh, Kevin,” said Arnþórr -Andrew humorlessly, still spinning the bat. “You’re the one who told me not to kill him. This was my solution.”

“Not that this wasn’t fun, but what the fuck do you two want?” Neil asked.

Andrew snorted. “Ask Kevin. I was all for leaving you to rot.”

Kevin sent Andrew another glare, before he turned it on Neil, crossing his arms imperiously. “Do you know even how much trouble you’re in? You’ve got half the country on a manhunt for you, and I’ll bet you don’t even know why.”

Neil’s eye twitched, he wasn’t that stupid. They’d hardly needed to track him down to tell him as much.

“I don’t know, _Kevin_ , maybe it has something to do with the fact that footage exists of me rising from the dead in the middle of a crime scene. I figured that might’ve raised a few eyebrows, maybe even ruffled a few skirts.” He crossed his own arms defiantly. “But if passing along the news was all you came here to do, then mission accomplished. I’ll be leaving now.”

Neil moved to leave, only for Kevin to throw out an arm and block his way.

“You’re coming with us,” He told Neil in the same infuriating tone. “One way or another. You’re too much of a security risk and we can’t have an unsupervised child exposing us.”

“A child?” Neil repeated incredulously, ready to punch Kevin for his sheer audacity. Only Damkina was old enough among them to get away with calling him that. “I’m not a child and I’m not coming with you.” 

“You seem to be under the mistaken impression that you have a choice,” Andrew spoke up.

“And what’s your plan if it turns out that I do, in fact, have a choice?”

“I’ll kill you and throw your body in the trunk of my car,” Andrew replied coolly. “You’re fast, but even you can’t outrun a bullet.” His expression was intense and unreadable, making it impossible to tell if he was bluffing.

Neil calculated the odds. Two against one and he was unarmed. He’d gotten out of worse situations unscathed before, but those had all been against opponents who weren’t immortal and didn’t know to aim for the head. His chances of outrunning them were a fraction of a percentage.

He let his defensive stance fall. “Fine,” He agreed sourly. He’d cooperate with them for now and go off on his own the second he could. At the very least he could be sure they wouldn’t turn him in, and it wasn’t as though he had anywhere to currently run to.

Kevin looked unbearably smug at his compliance. “The car is this way,” He said, turning on his heel and retracing the path Neil had taken. Seemingly confident that Neil would follow.

Andrew, however, didn’t share Kevin’s confidence, as he didn’t move, instead raising his eyebrows expectantly, and giving the bat another spin. Neil correctly interpreted it to mean that another escape attempt wouldn’t be tolerated.

Rolling his eyes, Neil followed Kevin to the car.

The car in question made Neil instantly regret his decision. It was a sleek, black beast that all but screamed expensive. Neil only knew enough about cars to unobtrusively hotwire them, but even he could guess that one didn’t buy a car like that without leaving behind a mile-long paper trail. It was the biggest security risk he’d ever seen, and he eyed it with open disgust. He hadn’t expected any of them to take the same level of precaution as him, but he’d at least hoped for subtlety.

Andrew unlocked the car with a key fob and threw Neil a knowing look as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes tauntingly. He lit a cigarette slowly, taking a long drag, before he popped the trunk.

“Bag in the trunk,” He instructed Neil after his exhale.

Neil mutinously did as he was told, slamming the trunk once his duffel bag was in there just to spite him.

Kevin was already situated in the passenger's seat, so Neil climbed in behind him, slamming the door again and earning an annoyed glare from Andrew.

They waited in the hot car until Andrew finished his cigarette, and Neil took comfort in the fact that Kevin at least looked as irritated as he felt.

It wasn’t until Andrew flicked away his cigarette butt and climbed into the car that Kevin swiveled around in his seat to look at Neil.

“I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions—” he began obnoxiously.

“—Not really.”

Kevin opened and closed his mouth a few times before he settled on glaring at Neil. Neil stared unrepentantly right back. He might have to come with them, but he didn’t have to be cooperative. If they wanted to threaten him, and patronize him in equal measures, then he wasn’t going to make it easy on them.

“The least you could do is pretend to be interested in what I have to say, considering how majorly you just fucked us all over,” Kevin retorted, and Neil rolled his eyes again.

“Kissing your ass won’t fix anything. Whatever your master plan is, I don’t care enough to find out. I was fine on my own.”

Kevin pointed a threatening finger at Neil. “You’re one of us, now. Your actions affect all of us and considering the first nine hours of your immortality resulted in the feds being immediately aware of our existence, you no longer get to call the shots.”

Neil stared at Kevin disbelievingly. “I’m sorry, the first nine hours of my what?” He demanded, searching Kevin for any signs of head trauma or intoxication.

“Your immortality,” Kevin repeatedly impatiently. “Coming back to life wasn’t a fluke, that’s going to keep happening every time you die.”

Neil stared at Kevin for a long moment, wondering if he was being subjected to someone’s idea of a bad joke. Kevin wasn’t stupid, no matter how desperately he was attempting to prove otherwise. Hair dye, and a new name all amounted to an exceptionally flimsy disguise in the face of a millennium spent dreaming of each other.

“You’re not serious.”

Kevin’s returning scowl was enough to convince Neil he was in fact serious. “You’ve already accepted that you died and came back once. How is it any harder to accept that it might happen again?”

Had Neil been any less in control he might’ve laughed at the absurdity of the situation, instead he turned his gaze to Andrew, who was watching him with practiced disinterest in the rearview mirror.

“I need to sleep,” He finally said, unable to summon the stupidity to commit to the backstory Kevin had conjured for him, or the courage to give up a part of him that wasn’t a lie. His safest choice was to completely disengage before he inevitably put his foot in his mouth.

Neil closed his eyes, and let his head drop against the window as Andrew started the car, ignoring the painfully loud music Andrew turned on

Kevin, after three minutes of furious protest, let it drop when Andrew increased the stereo volume for the eighth consecutive time, and Neil was left to feign sleep without interruption for the rest of the car ride. He passed the time by keeping count of the minutes and mapping out every turn in his head. He’d retrace his steps the second an opportunity presented itself to run. Letting his guard down around them was out of the question. Just because they couldn’t permanently kill him didn’t mean they meant him no harm; he was living proof that there was a fate far worse than death.

Neil abandoned the charade the second the car rolled to a halt on a gravel road, sitting up and cracking his neck, before looking out the window. They were in the mountains, at what looked like a resort three hours away from the truck stop. The area was heavily forested, but a pool was tucked away behind what looked like a reception building, and there was a fenced in pasture stretched out far down below them.

“Where are we?” He asked, craning his neck to try and catch sight of any location indicating signs or trail markers.

“The rendezvous point,” Andrew replied, intentionally vague.

“Have you been awake this whole time?!” Kevin demanded, as if the fact had ever been in question.

Neil sent him a flat, unimpressed look, his patience not yet recovered enough to deal with such painful obliviousness before he shoved open the car door and climbed out. Andrew was quick to follow him, affecting boredom, but watching him too intently to entirely pull it off. Rather than let Neil grab his own bag, he went around to the back, and unlocked the trunk with the key, shouldering the bag himself.

Neil shot him an unimpressed look as well and felt a curl of resentment at being so openly transparent. At some point Andrew had clocked him as being too attached to his bag to leave it behind.

Left with no other choice, Neil reluctantly followed Andrew and Kevin as they made their way through the resort and up a trail marked with a map. Neil took a moment to memorize it, unhelpful as it was. The three of them eventually came to the end of the trail in front of a large, two story, log cabin, complete with a balcony and enclosed front porch. It was every bit as excessive as the car, and Neil added another reason to his ever-growing list of reasons to run. They were frustratingly intent on being ostentatious, and Neil was desperate to avoid notice.

Andrew threw open the door without a care, disappearing into the cabin, and Kevin followed behind after throwing a final warning glance Neil’s way. Neil slowly and warily trudged after them, entering the comparative gloom of the cabin on high alert.

He heard the cacophony of voices before he saw anyone and followed the echoing laughter and apparent ribbing through the hallway until he reached the wide-open space of the main room. He froze, feeling the same cold terror he’d felt upon first seeing Kevin, once he caught sight of nearly every immortal he’d ever known, assembled in one place.


	4. Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the chapter where the biggest canon divergences start appearing for the sake of historical accuracy. Unfortunately I am by no means an expert, and all I can promise is that these chapters were written with about six months of research. Also some of these characters predate their surnames so I did change them accordingly. I'll list all the name changes at the end for ease of reading.

Neil fought against the overwhelming instinct to run—for the third time in the last twelve hours—as he stared in shock at the people he’d spent his life dreaming of, witnessing their own shocked reactions in turn as one by one they caught sight of him. All the conversation in the room tapered off and died, leaving behind an awkward, heavy silence, and Neil was forced to confront a room full of the other immortals on his own.

Feeling trapped, his eyes instinctively sought out all possible exits but inevitably returned against his will to everyone in the room.

Andrew had retreated into the depths of the room, occupying a strategically advantageous vantage point atop the bar counter between the conjoined kitchen and the sitting room. Immediately adjacent to him was his twin, Árni, who was leaning against the counter rather than sitting on it. Kevin had managed to retreat even farther than Andrew, half hidden by the long kitchen island, where he was pulling down a bottle of vodka from the top of the fridge.

Sitting on the long, black leather sectional that faced Neil head on, was Adelasia, with Serapia and Yahya on either side of her.

Adelasia Jovita Rufinus was sprawled languidly across the sectional and looked the most modern and ostentatious of the lot of them. Both her, and Yahya were slightly older than Kevin, and she had first died defending the seaward walls in the last siege of Syracuse, as a Patrikios leading the resistance. Little of her past was apparent in her appearance. Her newly blonde hair was done up in an elaborate braid that fell across her shoulder and hung down below her sternum. Heavy makeup accentuated her wide set, brown eyes, which dissected him with undisguised interest. A martini glass sat in one of her tanned and perfectly manicured hands, and she lazily swirled the contents around in almost imperceptible circles.

Serapia Fullo Renatus was beside her. She’d died around six centuries after Neil had, a gladiator slain at the Amphitheatrum Flavium and dragged through the Porta Libitina. She’d changed her hair drastically since Neil had last dreamt of her, the long, black hair she’d previously sported in more sedate styles, was now a startling white that curled slightly at the ends, just under her jaw and contrasted against her darker skin tone. Neil’s own experience with hair dye made him despair for the upkeep it likely required, especially as the bottom inch of her hair appeared to be dipped in the afterimage of a rainbow. She looked faintly surprised to see him, but underneath the surprise was a gentle warmth, starkly at odds with the ferocity he knew she was capable of.

Yahya al-Maghribi in contrast looked largely unchanged and timeless. Like Adelasia, he’d died during a siege, the siege of Île de la Cité, barely a decade later. The recently acquired scar across the brown skin underneath his right eye, that matched the placement of Kevin’s own tattooed Triquetra, was the only updated part of his appearance. His curly hair was closely cropped, while black facial hair grew freely around his jaw. His expression was wary, and his dark eyes regarded Neil suspiciously. Unlike Serapia and Adelasia, Yahya’s posture was rigid and upright against the back of the couch, and he looked ready to either flee or fight at any second.

Neil was convinced he’d have to be the first to break the silence, before the man he recognized as Nicolás stepped forward. Nicolás de Aquino y Cruz was one of the youngest among them and had died while fleeing Jesuit missionaries into the Barranca del Urique.

“Neil!” He greeted him excitedly, looking much the same as he had in Neil’s dreams. His hair was longer perhaps, down to his chin now, and the dark curls, which had loosened slightly with the added weight, were tied back with a colorful koyera. He looked a few shades darker than usual as well, his warm brown complexion deepened with a pre-summer tan, but the boyish grin on his face was the same. “You made it! We were worried Andrew would scare you off.”

Kevin snorted, taking a long pull straight from the bottle as he moved into the sitting room. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He took off running before he even saw Andrew.”

Andrew crossed his arms, looking almost vindicated in Kevin’s wake.

“Aw, don’t worry, Kevin,” Nicolás said, coming to stand by Neil. “I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”

“It was,” Neil insisted, feeling petty.

“Look at that, you’ll fit right in!” Nicolás cackled. “Insulting Kevin is the glue that holds this family together. I’m Nicky by the way.”

Neil accepted his hand, expecting a simple shake, but was unexpectedly pulled into a tight hug. Nicky was quick to release him, however, sparing him from anything too awkward.

“So, I’m guessing this is all very confusing for you,” he continued, grabbing Neil’s shoulders to pull him deeper into the room. “But just know that all of us have been in your shoes, and we’re here to answer any questions you have.”

Neil frowned, realizing that Kevin’s mistake hadn’t been a one off. He’d already accepted that his original plan to stay mysterious and vanish immediately was now impossible. That none of them recognized him, however, didn’t speak well for their intelligence or his future. Passing himself as a mortal to a group of immortals was a charade he wouldn’t be able to maintain beyond a day.

“Now there’s ten of us in total,” Nicky carried on, oblivious to Neil’s internal crisis, as he threw a casual arm around him. “But Dan and Matt are upstairs, _wink wink, nudge nudge_ , and Seth is on a booze run, which means it's just us for now. You already met Andrew and Kevin, both “certifiable rays of sunshine” as I’m sure you’ve guessed. And that’s Andrew’s twin Aaron, proof that twin’s share everything from stunning good looks to immortality itself.”

Árni made a point of dodging Nicky’s finger.

“On the couch is Jean, Renee, and Allison.” Nicky continued, pointing to Yahya, Serapia, and Adelasia, respectively. “Renee’s a saint, figuratively and literally, while Allison is an evil genius. Unfortunately, Jean is just a pretty face.”

Jean flipped Nicky off with both hands, in an almost elegant movement, and Renee smiled indulgently at Nicky as she absently tucked a white lock of hair behind her ear. Allison went as far as raising her drink in Nicky’s direction, though her eyes never left Neil.

Neil bit back the instinctive urge to ask about the updated names, remembering in time that it would beg the question of how he knew them. “What exactly was the point in bringing me here?” He asked Nicky, more willing to hear it from him than from Kevin.

Nicky removed his arm from Neil’s shoulder and maneuvered him onto the couch right next to Allison. “Kevin explained the immortality bit to you, right?” he asked, suddenly looking uncharacteristically serious.

“I die, I come back, I live forever,” Neil recited impatiently, tired of all the detours and prefacing everyone had deemed necessary.

“Right, exactly,” Nicky smiled winningly at him. “But the thing is, none of us know why. We’ve got this gift but no purpose, so Dan started using her abilities for the benefit of humanity. She’s the oldest of us, and therefore our fearless leader by default. Under her we all do what we can to help the world.” His eyes lit up with conviction.

Neil had thought before that Damkina was Dan, but the verbal confirmation helped. He still raised an eyebrow skeptically at the ‘save the world’ portion of Nicky’s spiel. He knew Nicky was the second youngest of them, but the naivete didn’t suit him considering he was still almost four hundred years old.

“And I come in where exactly?” Neil asked. “Being immortal doesn’t automatically turn people into philanthropists, and I’m not one of you.”

“Wow,” Aaron finally spoke up, shooting Neil a judgmental glare from across the room. “Way to thank the people who saved your sorry ass from the Feds. If you won’t help because it's the right thing to do, you should at least carry your weight while you’re with us. It’s a team effort.”

“Says, you,” Allison retorted with surprising vitriol. “Team effort my ass, you refuse to so much as talk to us between missions. The monster might be insane but at least he keeps in touch.”

Aaron sneered unflatteringly. “I’m not here to make friends. I do my part helping you save the world or whatever, but what happens afterwards is none of your business.”

“As it should be,” Renee intervened smoothly, putting a pacifying hand on Allison's shoulder. “Aaron is entitled to as much space as he wants, and I do wish you wouldn’t call Andrew a monster, Allison.”

Allison turned her glare on Renee. “Why, because he’s your _friend_? Remind me again, how many times has he killed Seth?”

Andrew bared his teeth in a cruel facsimile of a grin, leaning forward and planting his elbows on his knees. He ran a casual hand down the leather gauntlet on his left forearm.

“He knows what happens when he crosses one of my lines.”

Nicky winced at Andrew’s callous words, and beside him Allison looked incensed. There was a tense moment where Neil thought it would develop into a brawl, when the sound of the front door opening shattered the moment.

Everyone reached for a weapon: going on high alert. Heavy footsteps punctuated the strained silence, before a man in his late twenties emerged from the hallway, both arms laden with plastic grocery bags, and everyone around Neil relaxed at the anticlimactic sight.

Neil, however, remained vigilant and took the opportunity to size up the immortal he knew the least about. Bryan “Seth” Duncan was the most recent immortal they’d acquired and had died of smallpox during the American invasion of Quebec. The evidence was still apparent in the scars on his face, though nowhere near as severe as some of the cases Neil had seen. Seth was tall, taller than Kevin, with unkempt ginger hair, and an uneven farmer’s tan. He wasn’t nearly as built as Andrew, but he had more than enough muscle to be a sizable threat. His already sour expression morphed into one of utter loathing when he caught sight of Neil, as he walked forward somewhat unsteadily.

“Who the fuck is he?” Seth demanded, pointing furiously at Neil. His words came out slightly slurred and muffled by the sound of glass bottles clinking together, as his careless gesture sent the bags swinging. Neil felt his estimation of Seth plummet the second he realized he was already drunk.

Allison didn’t hesitate in turning the situation to her advantage and slid an arm around Neil in an obviously a calculated manner. “This is Neil,” She said, pulling him close and petting his hair, while Neil fought to keep his expression blank and disguise his discomfiture. “He’s new.”

Seth’s glare got impossibly darker, and he stalked into the kitchen with undisguised aggression, slamming the bags on the counter. “So, what, we’re just picking up every stray off the street, now?” He asked, viciously freeing a six pack of beer from the bag it was packed in.

“Why not?” Nicky returned, his voice as uncharacteristically nasty as Allison’s had been towards Andrew. “We recruited you after all.”

Neil wondered vaguely if he ought to catalogue the complicated group politics between them all.

Before he could consider it too deeply, his attention was captured by Andrew, who had visibly tensed at the exchange. His eyes had gained the same predatory glint that’d been present when he’d slammed a bat into Neil’s ribs, and he had a hand concealed in one of his gauntlets, obviously retrieving something. Judging by his posture, Neil was willing to bet it was a weapon. Something worse than a bat, but more subtle than a gun.

Seth turned to point at Nicky, disgusted. “Don’t you fucking speak to me,” he spat. “Don’t even look at me, you fucking—”

He jerked back; the rest of his insult swallowed by a guttural cry as a knife buried itself to the hilt in his throat.

Andrew had a second knife at the ready, staring coldly at Seth as the man sank to his knees, and it didn't take any investigative thinking to realize he’d thrown the first one. It was, however, an impressive shot; Neil could tell the knives weren’t balanced enough to be made for throwing.

“I don’t like that word,” Andrew told a dying Seth in an awful tone. “I told you what would happen the next time you tried to say it.”

Allison shoved Neil away and let out an outraged cry on Seth’s behalf, immediately jumping to her feet. Seth’s eyes were wide, darting around like that of a cornered animal and his mouth hung open in shock. Neil watched as his hand rose to his neck, scrabbling ineffectually at the knife, until he finally got his hand solidly around the hilt. He tugged at the knife and his neck made a sick squelching noise, as he dislodged it entirely. He swayed slightly on his knees, a horrible wet choking sound the only sound he could make as he attempted to breathe. He wasn’t healing, at least, not fast enough, and his eyes rolled back into his head as a spray of arterial blood jetted out from the gaping wound. 

Neil wrinkled his nose at the mess, and in front of him, Nicky gagged audibly as Seth collapsed backwards onto the floor in a pathetic heap beside the island. Neil suspected that it was likely the alcohol in his system interfering with his healing. That or Seth was as bad as he was when it came to getting enough sleep.

Allison was almost instantly at Seth’s side, while Renee sent Andrew a look that was equal parts understanding and disapproving. Kevin looked unfazed, still making his way steadily through the vodka handle he’d grabbed beforehand while curled up in an armchair. Jean meanwhile looked disgusted and resigned, putting as much space as he could between himself and Andrew while remaining on the couch.

No one looked, however, as if they were willing to do anything about the blood slowly inching its way towards the rug in the sitting room. After the shocked silence went on too long to be bearable, Neil finally stood up and went to join Allison in the kitchen, figuring there’d be cleaning supplies underneath the sink. Leaving behind evidence of a murder in a rental was an easy way to get them all in extremely hot water.

Andrew snagged his arm as he passed the bar and stared him down from his elevated position on the bar counter. Neil looked up unflinchingly, knowing better than to react as he felt the sudden indent of a knife pressed against his chest.

“Someone just died,” Andrew murmured, his voice laced with suspicion, his hand tightening painfully around Neil’s bicep. “Would it kill you to find some compassion?”

Neil shrugged out of his grip; the memory of his broken ribs not enough to keep his mouth from running away from him. “Not as fast as you would,” he retorted.

Stepping around Seth’s pooling blood, he crouched down in front of the sink to access the lower cabinet. Sure enough, there was bleach and a roll of shop towels among various other cleaning products in front of the drainage pipe. Likely left there by the cleaning service, since Neil couldn’t envision anyone except perhaps Renee having the foresight to buy them.

Neil stood up just as Seth gasped back to life, lurching forward into a seated position. Allison was there to help him stand, looking concerned, despite her earlier antagonization. Neil stared curiously as she patted him down somewhat frantically, until she reassured herself of his continued health.

The second she was convinced he’d be fine, Allison stepped back. The concern on her face immediately winked out of existence as sure as if it had never been there, and she looked disgusted and annoyed with his existence. Neil ordinarily wouldn’t have cared, but considering she’d used him to provoke Seth, he found himself curious about the inconsistent behavior.

“You need to go shower,” Allison insisted, her lip curled, and nose wrinkled. “You’ve got blood all over your... everything.”

Seth glowered at her, unfazed by her rapid mood swing, and then shot a poisonous look at Andrew before he grabbed his beer from atop the island countertop and stormed off without another word. He stomped up the staircase two at a time and disappeared down the upstairs hallway. The loud bang of a door slamming out of sight was the last they heard of him.

Neil sighed as he considered the full scope of the mess in the kitchen. It was easier to list what wasn’t covered in blood. It would’ve been far simpler to take care of had Seth not pulled out the knife, but Seth had likely done so with that train of thought in mind. He seemed spiteful enough if nothing else.

Neil started by grabbing the knife out of the pool of blood it was covered in, careful not to cut himself on it in the process. He wasn’t in any condition to heal, considering he’d only pretended to sleep in the car, and the food in his duffel bag was out of reach. The coffee he’d had hours earlier was all he was running on. Trying to heal on that alone, with as little sleep as he’d had, would leave him as pathetic as Seth. After Andrew’ violent demonstration, that was a level of vulnerability he absolutely didn’t need to reveal.

He grabbed a shop towel and wiped the blade clean of the lukewarm blood dripping from it. The familiar heft of a knife and the feeling of blood on his hands dredged forth a tide of dangerous memories that threatened to drown him, and Neil acutely felt the need to outrun them. He suppressed the thought, alongside the urge to scrub his hands clean, and instead focused on drying the knife. It was a long knife, a seax if he had to guess, about eight inches in length with a clip-point blade, and an ivory hilt. It matched the one in Andrew’s hands down to the pattern welding of the steel, obviously part of an ancient, matched set. Once it was clean enough to pass a visual inspection, Neil turned and, against his better judgment, handed it back to Andrew, hilt first.

Andrew’s face went inscrutably blank as he accepted the knife slowly, strangely careful to maintain as little skin contact as possible. He spun it casually in his hand, like he’d done before with the bat. Neil rolled his eyes to disguise his discomfort. One of his father’s associates, Iolanthe, had taught him a similar knife trick before he’d run away with his mother, and Neil had walked away from the lesson with a healthy dose of fear, and several more scars.

“Uh, Neil,” Nicky piped up nervously from his spot in the living room. “Maybe that’s not the best idea—” His words dried up with a grunt as Kevin interrupted him with a well-placed elbow.

Aaron, however, apparently didn’t have any compunctions to stop him from speaking up. “You know he’s eventually going to stab you with that knife, right?” He asked scornfully, his voice exaggeratedly slow, as though he were talking to an idiot.

Neil figured as much. He also figured that the consequences for not returning the knife would’ve been far worse. He could handle being stabbed. But a man who killed as a warning could come up with a lot worse, given the time and incentive.

“Guess it's a good thing I’m immortal, then,” Neil said dryly, and knelt to start mopping up the blood.

Allison turned bitterly on her heel. “Great.” Her stilettos clicked against the hardwood floor as she retreated to the sectional. “The new kid’s a sociopath. Wonderful. Because we needed another one.”

Neil rolled his eyes again, this time out of genuine annoyance, and didn’t bother to correct her. The more distance between him and the others, the better.

Neil saw Renee stand up and relinquish her spot to Allison out of the corner of his eye. She joined Neil in the kitchen, her footsteps silent as a predator’s, and he was reminded of the violence that’d been synonymous with her name in the years after her first death.

Renee rummaged under the sink behind Neil, making the back of his neck buzz in anticipation of an attack, before she finally re-entered his field of vision with a second roll of shop towels and a black garbage bag.

“Mind if I help?” She asked sweetly. Neil shook his head, seeing no way to refuse and accepted the proffered trash bag as he fought down his apprehension. The compassionate front she adopted was as unnerving as Andrew’s knife trick.

Together they managed to mop all the blood up off the floor while ignoring the somber silence of the others. They were just spraying bleach over everything by the time Seth reappeared with the last two immortals in tow.

Seth had showered and sobered up despite the beer he’d taken with him. He was still damp but looked decidedly less like he’d just been murdered. The other two, however, looked oddly content and were greeted by the others with high pitched whistles and clapping. Neil didn’t know, or care to dissect the other’s reactions, but he did study them intently.

Matthew Boyd, who had to be the “Matt” Nicky had mentioned, had been a part of the Boyd clan, and died during the Massacre of Berwick, joining their ranks almost two and a half centuries after Andrew and Aaron. Like Renee and Allison, He had recently changed his hair, and it hung in carefully styled braids. His clothes were slightly askew, but his physical build was like Seth’s, in the sense that he was more than capable of handling himself. Unlike Seth, however, he wore a good-natured smile: his bright, white teeth contrasting brilliantly against his dark skin.

Damkina, or “Dan,” on the other hand, looked painfully familiar. Her dark, curly hair was cropped almost as short as Jean’s, in a relatively recent change in hairstyle, and her strong shoulders were squared with self-assuredness. Neil searched her face for any sign of recognition, craving it as much as he feared her reaction. It had just been the two of them for the longest time, with no one else to act as a buffer between the dreams, and he knew her best of the lot of them. It had never occurred to him, however, to seek her out, and looking at the way she’d managed to assemble everyone else, he wondered if she resented him for leaving her alone so long. The way he sometimes resented his mother for dying and doing the same.

Dan’s vibrant eyes were completely devoid of any sign of recognition, however, as she looked at him appraisingly, thoughtfully raising a single brown hand to her chin. Neil felt his relief mingle with dread at the prolonged confrontation waiting in the wings.

“So, you’re the newbie. Neil...” Dan said his name slowly, as though tasting it. There was a long pause where she just stared at him, and Neil felt anxiety worm its way under his skin. “How old are you?” she finally asked.

Neil didn’t know how to answer that question. She didn’t recognize him, none of them did, and he had no idea whether it would be better or worse to correct them. He could always give the age of his body, but Neil didn’t know the right answer to that either.

Time hadn’t left much of an imprint on him since he’d died, but there’d been changes throughout the millennia, subtle as they might’ve been, that made Neil suspect he’d physically aged since. The exact age he’d died at was a mystery in the aching blur of grief that had followed his mother’s death. For his identities he typically chose the age of a college student, though if pressed he would guess that he was slightly older.

“His driver’s license puts him at twenty-three,” Andrew interjected, taking matters into his own hands when Neil didn’t answer fast enough. Neil turned to glare at him, only to watch in dismay as Andrew chucked his ruined wallet in Dan's direction. He could only helplessly wonder when Andrew had found time to rifle through his duffel bag for it.

Dan looked surprised by Andrew’ response as she caught the wallet, staring in disbelief at Neil before opening it up to examine his driver’s license. She stared at it for a long moment, seemingly unperturbed by the dried blood it was coated in.

“Twenty-three,” She repeated. “That’s older than I was expecting.”

Neil resisted the urge to tell her that she had no idea, and instead opted for a vaguely affronted look. He knew it was his height that had to have thrown her off. He’d inherited it from his mother, along with her dark hair and complexion, and she’d been short even by ancient standards. He was at least taller than Andrew and Aaron by a few inches, but that accomplishment was made less impressive by the fact they were the shortest ones there.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Neil finally said, figuring it was the safest option.

Dan at least had the decency to look contrite before she looked over to Renee. “Were you able to get him up to date on everything?” She asked.

Renee looked apologetic. “Not exactly,” She started, briefly casting her eyes to Andrew. “There was a... complication.”

“She means Andrew killed Seth. Again.” Allison shot Andrew a venomous look.

Dan gave Andrew a long-suffering look, and then looked anxiously at Neil. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she apologized, genuine regret in her eyes.

Neil shrugged, not seeing why she felt the need to apologize. “It’s fine,” he said.

Andrew snorted in response. “Your precious newbie was the one who cleaned up afterwards. Managed to beat Renee to the punch.” His voice was mocking, though Neil wasn’t sure if the ridicule was directed at him or Dan.

That seemed to garner the reaction Andrew was aiming for, as Dan's expression morphed into one of incredulity. “He did what?”

Neil hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that his actions might look suspicious to anyone else. He’d been more focused on erasing any tracks that would endanger him. Then again, he’d been desensitized to people dying for as long as he could remember. The consequences of growing up with his father, only further exacerbated by an eternity spent outliving everyone.

Behind her, Matt looked faintly ill, and Seth was looking at him with the same expression of disgust he’d directed at Nicky. No one seemed willing to talk without an explanation, and Neil had none to give. It wasn’t until Renee stepped forward that the awkward standoff came to a halt.

“Neil did us all a favor,” She said in her gentle tone, without a hint of irony.

As far as rebukes went it wasn’t much of one, especially in the aftermath of Andrew’s version, and yet, against all logic, it worked. Dan once again wore an expression of remorse with Matt sporting one to match. Only Seth and Andrew held onto their contempt for the situation, a reaction Neil understood far more.

“Thank you, Neil,” Dan said after an awkward moment of silence. “But I want you to know that what Andrew did is unacceptable behavior, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to get used to it.” She said it like she was trying to reassure a spooked animal, and Neil swallowed his offended pride.

“Right,” he said, for lack of a better explanation. He got the feeling Dan was overestimating either Andrew’s self-restraint, or everyone else’s ability to control him.

Dan turned back to Renee, easily buying his acceptance. “Has Wymack gotten in touch yet?”

Renee shook her head, before tucking an errant lock of hair behind one of her ears. “I got an automated email that said he was out of his office for a couple of days, but nothing beyond that.”

Dan sighed while Andrew sent Neil a faint, mocking smile. Neil knew better than to interpret it as anything other than a threat.

“Looks like we’ll get a chance to bond before our next mission,” Andrew said, a velvet undercurrent of danger lining his every word, while Dan shot him a warning look.

Neil fell back on what little remained of his self-preservation instincts in lieu of rising to the bait. “Who’s Wymack?”

“Better question,” Seth interrupted. “Why the fuck are we all standing around?” 

Dan sighed again, shooting Seth an annoyed look, before turning back to Neil. “It’s probably actually best that we all take a seat, it’s a long story.”

“As long as the concept of immortality?” Andrew challenged clearly in a provocative mood, pointedly kicking his feet against the bar where he was already seated. “Kevin was able to explain that in two sentences. Perhaps you should let him handle it.”

Neil cast his eyes in Kevin’s direction and was met with the sight of a shaky middle finger held up in their direction. Kevin was cradling the almost empty bottle in his other hand, the contents clearly having taken the effect he’d been chasing.

“I’ll take the longer version,” Neil said. He doubted anyone who hadn’t already been immortal would’ve come away from Kevin’s explanation with any real understanding of the situation. Neil didn’t want a half-coherent repeat on a topic he knew nothing about.

Dan nodded approvingly. “Smart choice,” She said, before moving away from the bar to stand in front of the sectional.

Matt and Seth followed Dan, though Seth collapsed sullenly in the vacant armchair, while Matt loyally stood off to Dan's right. Neil reluctantly trailed behind, taking a seat on the outside edge of the sectional beside Jean. He seemed the safest choice of the lot of them, not that it made him all that safe of a choice.

“Alright, so Wymack,” Dan began. “He’s a former CIA operative gone rogue, and part of why we’re able to do what we can to help everyone. He’s got the connections and information we need and provides a level of protection that lets us all breathe a little easier.”

“He’s not an immortal,” Neil interrupted, more of a statement than a question.

“No, He’s not. He knows about us, however.” Dan ignored the resentful looks she got from Aaron and Seth as she said as much. “He was able to piece it together himself and was more curious about our cause than how we’d managed to cheat death. Apparently, he’s big on the idea of second chances, which makes our situation a little easier for him to swallow.” She had a wry smile in place, as though she expected Neil to find humor in the situation.

Neil didn’t. All he found was a liability. Seth and Aaron at least seemed unhappy with Wymack’s involvement, and though Andrew looked uninterested in the conversation, Neil didn’t see such a suspicious man easily accepting mortal interference.

“You trust him,” Neil said, another accusation disguised as a question.

“Yes,” Dan answered with absolute sincerity. “We’ve worked with him for five years now, and he’s proved himself countless times.”

Five years was both a blink of an eye and an eternity to know someone for. Neil didn’t trust anyone; to have that level of certainty in someone was an unthinkable risk he hadn’t dared to entertain since his mother died.

“How exactly are you making the world a better place?” He asked rather than voice his doubts in their source. Doing work at the behest of a former CIA operative just sounded like a recipe for furthering imperialist interests under the guise of world peace.

“How up to date are your politics?” Dan asked instead of answering, and Neil felt his doubts increase exponentially.

“My politics,” He replied flatly.

“She wants to know whether or not you’re down with eco-terrorism,” Aaron interjected, looking bored.

Dan shot him an irritated look, before turning back to Neil. “It’s more complicated than that, but yes, that is part of it.”

“Oh,” Neil felt his doubts recede slightly. Eco-terrorism was a far cry from deposing foreign leaders for oil and mineral access. “You have an awfully nice car for an eco-terrorist cell.” He said, just to be difficult.

Dan cast a pointed gaze towards Andrew. “The car belongs to the Monster,” She said, as though that alone were explanation enough.

"Dan,” Renee said, a note of disapproval in her tone.

“Renee,” Dan returned challengingly.

“I thought you weren’t going to take sides,” Renee said as Allison unsuccessfully hid a vindictive snort.

Dan crossed her arms and cocked a hip. “He killed Seth in front of the kid. Calling him a monster is hardly going to influence his opinion at this point.”

“I’m not a kid,” Neil felt compelled to point out. Privately he thought Seth had rather brought it on himself for failing to recognize the threat Andrew posed.

“It’s not like Seth didn’t deserve it,” Nicky interjected.

“Right. Because you didn’t provoke him in the first place,” Aaron snapped.

“Aaron is right,” Allison jumped to agree despite the hostility between the two. “You always provoke Seth, and then hide behind the Monster and let him do your dirty work.”

“I provoke Seth? By doing what? Existing?” Nicky paused to laugh bitterly. “Here, let me just vacate the premises for your pet homophobe. I know the fact that I’m still breathing happens to set him off, and I wouldn’t want anyone to inconvenience him over it.”

“That’s enough!” Dan intervened; her voice raised enough to drown everyone out. “Andrew, you failed to mention that was why you killed Seth,” She said, turning to stare reproachfully at him, while still sparing a glare for Seth.

“Oh no, Captain, you just _assumed,_ ” Andrew sneered, raising his hands as though absolving himself of blame. “But don’t you go turning me into some sort of saint, that’s Renee’s job. I told Seth I would kill him the next time he crossed one of my lines, and that’s exactly what I did.”

Neil found it interesting that defending Nicky just so happened to coincide with Andrew reasserting his boundaries.

Dan didn’t share his interest however, as she’d already rounded on Seth. “And you, I have no fucking sympathy. I don’t care how many times it takes to get it through that thick head of yours, but if I have to stand aside and let Andrew make the lesson stick, I will.”

Seth opened his mouth to give an angry retort, but Dan had moved on to Allison. “As for you! Stop defending that ignorant shithead every time he gets his ass kicked!”

Allison tossed her braid over her shoulder, looking unrepentant, and Neil tuned out her response, his gaze instead falling on Andrew, who was watching the whole thing with a sharp-eyed interest. There was the same undercurrent of vindication that had been present during Neil’s introduction to Nicky, though it vanished in an instant when Dan turned her attention to Andrew. Andrew didn’t so much as move, but an aura of danger radiated from him, akin to a coiled pit viper.

Dan faltered at the sight, then wisely said nothing to Andrew; Neil mentally catalogued the information for later. That Andrew would kill a perceived threat on behalf of both Nicky and Aaron even among allies felt significant, though the connecting link was absent.

“So aside from eco-terrorism, what else do you do?” Neil asked once the awkward standoff became too much to bear.

Dan seized the conversational lifeline with visible gratitude. “We redistribute hoarded wealth and resources to impoverished communities, return stolen museum artifacts to their rightful inheritors, and take down corporations and institutions responsible for human rights violations. Among other things.”

Neil rescinded his initial judgement that they were naïve in their humanitarian efforts. With Dan leading them, he shouldn’t be surprised. She’d seen the rise and fall of countless empires; the systems of cruelty inherent to them would’ve left her with an innate knowledge of their causes. He doubted their work would ever be done, as there wasn’t one convenient source of suffering they could dissolve and be done with it all. Instead, they were up against a hydra; immortal and doubling in size with every devastating strike.

“Makes sense that you’re in the States, then,” Neil conceded. 

Dan smiled something fierce and victorious and gave him an approving nod.

“Finally! A fellow comrade!” Nicky said in an ebullient tone. “The first thing he did was insult Kevin too, it’s like he was made in a lab just for us!”

Neil noticed Jean flinch at the last part of Nicky’s comment, while Kevin’s empty handle of vodka shattered against the floor. Neil stared curiously at the way he clutched his Triquetra.

“What…?” As Nicky visibly reconsidered his word choice, his expression morphed into one of horror. “Shit, that wasn’t what I meant…” He cast a nervous glance Neil’s way and opened his mouth to explain.

“How about we show Neil where he’ll be sleeping?” Matt interrupted, moving to block Kevin from Neil’s line of sight.

Neil shoved aside his curiosity and shrugged as everyone looked to him. It was obvious that they were trying to hide something, but a place to sleep likely meant a place to stow his duffle bag, and he was more than eager to get it out of Andrew’s grasp.

“Sure,” He agreed, standing up and moving to retrieve his duffel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damkina “Dan”   
> 2000 BCE Sumer 
> 
> Nathanael “Neil”   
> 490 BCE Greece/Iran
> 
> Serapia Fullo Renatus “Renee”   
> 119 CE Antioch/Rome
> 
> Adelasia Jovita Rufinus “Allison”   
> 878 CE Syracuse, Italy 
> 
> Yahya al-Maghribi “Jean”   
> 886 CE Paris, France/ Berber kingdom of Mauretania
> 
> Caoimhghín Ó Dalaigh “Kevin”   
> 917 CE Ireland
> 
> Árni Ketilsson “Aaron”   
> 1062 CE Sweden
> 
> Arnþórr Ketilsson “Andrew”   
> 1062 CE Sweden
> 
> Matthew Boyd “Matt”   
> 1296 CE Scotland
> 
> Nicolás de Aquino y Cruz “Nicky”   
> 1691 CE Pimería Alta de Sonora y Sinaloa (Mexican state of Sonora)
> 
> Bryan Seth Duncan “Seth”   
> 1775 CE Scotland/American colonies


	5. Two Nicotine Two Trauma

Matt seemed apologetic as he led Neil upstairs. “Sorry about all of that,” He said to Neil once they were out of earshot. "Dan wanted to be the one to pick you up, just so you wouldn’t be thrown into the deep end of all of this without any warning. Problem is, Kevin was the only one getting a clear read on you, and he doesn’t go anywhere without Andrew, who insisted on going alone.”

“It’s fine,” Neil said reflexively, before the rest of Matt’s explanation sunk in. He frowned. “What do you mean, Kevin was the only one getting a clear read on me?”

“Oh,” Matt said with a chagrined laugh as he rounded a corner. “I knew we forgot to explain something. It was a bit creepy how we all knew your name, yeah? See whenever we get a new addition, all of us dream about them until we finally meet up. Then the dreams stop. Weird right?”

Neil gave something that could pass for a smile as dread coalesced in his stomach. “Sure, weird.”

Matt nodded along. “Thing is, some of us get clearer pictures than the others. All of us save for Seth got a pretty clear image of your death, and Andrew got your name off your license, but aside from that, nothing. No idea why, but Kevin was the exception. He was able to track you in real time, and Dan was hell bent on getting you before the Feds did, so Andrew and Kevin wound up overseeing your extraction.”

Neil wondered what it said about him that he was able to consistently get as much information out of the dreams as he did. It might’ve just been that he’d been alone the longest, but he doubted it was that simple. He’d spent nearly every single night of his immortality dreaming of the others. First just Dan who was older than he was, then Renee when she’d joined them, and slowly but surely everyone else. He’d witnessed their deaths, and the lives they’d made for themselves afterwards. It didn’t seem possible that the others would be so cavalier about such a vital connection. The inconsistent clarity, however, did at east explain how they’d managed to mistake him for someone who didn’t exist. 

He wondered if they knew he still existed, the immortal beneath the façade of Neil. The man who had burned his mother’s corpse on the shore of one sea, only to be killed by his father on the beach of another. The man who had earned every scar on his body, with nothing left to show for it but the ghosts of his assailants. Or if Neil, the hollow shell of a boy, the latest in an infinite stream of empty identities, was all he’d been reduced to. Was he real if nobody remembered him? Had he truly walked away from the black sand of that beach alive?

Matt came to stop in front of a simple bedroom door and gestured extravagantly towards it, pulling Neil out of his existential spiral. “This is you. Unfortunately, we’ve only got five rooms, so you’ll be sharing with Seth. If he gives you any problems though, just let me know. He’s no Kevin, but I’ll still punch him for you.”

Neil wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but he rather thought he’d gotten off easy considering Andrew had been a possibility with his luck. This way he was much less likely to wake up dead. He still raised his eyebrows at the implication that Matt had issues with Kevin, however. Seth was understandable, but Kevin had come out of left field.

“Thanks,” He finally replied. Neil wouldn’t need his help, but Matt seemed earnest and eager to help without any of the condescension of the others.

Matt waved away his thanks with another smile. “I’d say you came at a weird time, and we’re not always like this, but that would be a lie. Renee is good people though, and she’ll look out for you too, so you don’t have to worry overmuch about the others.”

Neil wouldn’t have explained that Renee worried him most of the lot of them even if he’d had the words to do so. “Right.”

“I’ll just leave you to unpack and decompress then. We’ll probably be ordering food for dinner in a couple of hours, so just let us know if you have any preferences sometime before then.”

Neil nodded, and Matt gave him one more departing smile, before turning back the way he’d come. Neil waited until he was out of sight before he let himself into the bedroom he’d be sharing with Seth.

It was a larger room than he was expecting; with two twin sized beds made up in matching linens on either side of the spacious area, and a door leading off to what Neil suspected was a conjoined bathroom. There were chests of drawers on either side of the door and a large window on the far wall. Neil noted with dismay that the minimalist design of the room didn’t leave any places to hide his duffel bag save for the obvious.

Neil chose to ignore the issue for the time being and locked the door behind him, before marching over to the unclaimed bed. He set his bag down and immediately opened it, the unsettling knowledge that Andrew had at least partially rifled through it lending him a sense of urgency he wouldn’t have otherwise had.

He carefully removed the contents, the top layer of innocuous textbooks above his clothing, until he finally got down to his truly important possessions. There lay a thick, hand-bound, leather journal, several centuries old and filled to the bursting with uneven hand-cut pages. It was the find of a lifetime for any aspiring historian, and currently the most revealing piece of evidence Neil owned. In it lay a detailed profile on all the other immortals, with accompanying portraits done in his hand, and the resulting mythos they had left in their wake. Firsthand accounts of encounters with them from long dead mortals were mixed in with the recorded happenings of his own dreams, and any instance of their appearance in various pieces of media. Diary entries, newspaper clippings, fragments of oil paintings, playbills, fairytales, and poems were all painstakingly pressed between the pages.

Next to the journal was the binder containing the contact information of everyone who could help him disappear, and every identity he’d kept in the last century. Neil didn’t do repeats with identities or locations, not so long as all the people he’d encountered were still alive. He’d coded the information painstakingly and disguised it further by stuffing the binder’s plastic sheet protectors with meaningless drawings he’d done until it resembled a makeshift portfolio. He also had money hidden alongside the contacts. Stacks of bills rubber-banded together in a dozen or so currencies, various matured certificates of deposit, war bonds still accumulating interest, and directions to places he’d stashed objects of value to pawn. Life on the run was expensive, and while Neil wasn’t above stealing, it was easier and far less risky to get by through honest means. Or as honest as Neil could get, anyhow.

There was absolutely no explanation for why either of those items would be in the hands of the twenty-three-year-old fledgling immortal, that the others assumed him to be, and Neil didn’t know how to explain the journal even if they learned the truth about him. The only smart choice at present was to take the chance to escape. He’d been waiting for one such opportunity since he’d gotten in Andrew’s car. He could leave out the window, and they’d all assume he’d gotten spooked by it all and ran, never realizing the truth.

Except Neil couldn’t bring himself to do it. If Matt was to be believed, then the dreams would stop now that he’d met everyone, and Neil would lose his only connection to the others. Without the dreams, Neil would truly be alone, condemned to spend the rest of eternity looking over his shoulder as he pretended his life was worth living.

Frustrated with his own stupidity, Neil wedged the binder and journal underneath the box spring of the bed, and then shoved everything else back into his duffel bag. He wouldn’t get another chance like this, but it didn’t matter. He’d leave before they figured him out, he reasoned, as he grabbed his pack of cigarettes and lighter. It wasn’t like they’d want him to stay after he’d lied to them anyhow.

Neil crammed his duffel in the bottom drawer of the empty dresser, forcing it shut with no small amount of effort, and then headed for the window. It was unlocked, and slid open easily, and Neil was able to climb out onto the roof without a screen blocking the way. He took a seat on the sun warmed shingles in the shade created by a neighboring oak where he wasn’t in any danger of falling, and lit his cigarette, taking a drag to get it going.

The bittersweet scent of the smoke hung in the air around Neil, as he let the cigarette slowly burn down to the filter and stared blankly up at the impossibly blue sky. The cicadas had taken up their deafening chorus, the noisy din rising and falling in intensity at regular intervals that Neil used to time a periodic drag to keep the cigarette alive until he was left with nothing more than the burnt-out stub. He lit two more cigarettes one after another in a similar fashion, until the sun had visibly moved across the sky and the shade from the tree had stretched to encompass the entire roof.

The smoke in the air made his mother’s ghost feel painfully present, and Neil struggled to breathe through the unexpectedly painful vice that squeezed his heart. Mandanā had been his furious protector until the end; a shield against the untold horrors his father had planned for him, determined to keep him alive at all costs. Though it was her voice that lingered most in his thoughts, his mother’s face hadn’t faded from his memory.

He took after her in appearance, a fact he loved and loathed in equal parts. They shared the same, dark, heavy-lidded eyes, thin lips, and thick eyebrows that lent them naturally solemn expressions. It made looking in the mirror difficult, that glimpse of her features without a reminder of her death; his traitorous heart never failed to hope, however irrationally, that she was there in that moment.

He wondered if his mother had ever felt that way looking at him. Neil had had a brother once upon a time. Nathanael— his namesake before his mother had covertly renamed him— had died before his birth, an Ephebes that never saw life as a soldier. Neil was meant to be a replacement before his mother had run away with him.

Neil debated a fourth cigarette, not yet ready to go back in and face the others, before discounting it. He felt too raw for it to bring anymore comfort, the memory of his mother too sharp to be anything but disapproving of his current actions. Pocketing his cigarettes, Neil considered the tree to his right, and weighed his own exhaustion levels, before summarily coming to an unsatisfying conclusion. With no small amount of reluctance, he clambered back into the room through the window and was greeted with a furious banging on the door.

Neil trudged over to unlock it, and revealed a red-faced Seth, who aggressively shouldered past him.

“I’ve been knocking for ten fucking minutes, where the fuck were you?!” He demanded.

Neil peered into the hallway and noticed with relief that no one had come to investigate the source of the banging. Seth was exaggerating then. There was little chance he would’ve restrained himself to just knocking had Neil locked him out for more than a minute or two.

“Nowhere,” he lied.

Seth scoffed and started rifling through his side of the room, opening, and slamming drawers, appearing to double check that everything was as he left it. Neil could’ve told him as much but didn’t see much of a point in doing so.

Eventually Seth ran out of steam and stopped fruitlessly searching for signs of tampering to glare at Neil accusingly. “You smell like shit.”

Neil raised an eyebrow at such a toothless insult. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious,” Seth sneered, his mouth twisting into a deeper scowl. “You smell like someone crapped in an ashtray.”

“I’m sure I’ll live.”

A vein jumped in Seth’s forehead. “Can’t believe I’m rooming with such a freak,” He spat, and Neil rolled his eyes at the cheap shot.

“Is Andrew still downstairs?” He asked pointedly, taking a vindictive pleasure in how red Seth turned in response.

“Fuck you.” Seth looked on the precipice of violence, and Neil took that as his cue to leave.

“Right,” He said, turning to head downstairs. “Try not to get murdered,” Neil tossed over his shoulder on his way out the door.

Snippets of furious, hushed conversation floated up the stairs as Neil descended them, and he stopped, just out of view, when he realized they were talking about him.

From his perch on the stairs, Neil had an unobscured view of the sitting room and he saw Matt with his arms crossed, staring down an incensed Kevin, who was working himself into a deeper rage with every word.

“—can’t afford to coddle him! He’s a weak enough link as it is, I refuse to work with him if you keep this up!”

“Kevin—” Dan started reprovingly before Jean spoke over her.

“—Is not wrong. The child you’re so keen on keeping ignorant just watched a man die without so much as flinching. Explaining the dangers this life poses is hardly going to be what breaks him.”

Renee cut Matt off before he could argue. “Jean is right. If Neil can handle Andrew, he can handle the truth.”

Andrew shot Renee a combative look. “Are you so certain he can handle me, Fullo? He has the look of a runner; give me time and I can break him.”

Renee returned his expression with a raised eyebrow. “Is he one of yours or mine, then?” she asked, seamlessly switching to Latin.

Andrew waved a hand dismissively and responded in kind. “He is nothing until I determine he is not a threat. If you want to keep him alive, you train him. I’m not letting Kevin anywhere near him.”

Neil noticed that no one else seemed to comprehend the conversation happening right in front of them. The uneasy looks everyone was throwing the pair also spoke volumes of their disapproval of Andrew. Neil, however, was uneasy for the opposite reason. He didn’t know what Renee would be training him for, but he was far more comfortable with Andrew’s familiar brand of violence than what he’d seen lurking beneath Renee’s gentle exterior.

"Dan won’t stop in Ibiza after what happened to Seth,” Renee said. “And Wymack won’t approve a travel VISA to Spain.”

“If I think our newest charge needs a trip to the isle, I have the contacts to make it happen without an entourage of chaperones.” Andrew replied. “I’ll give him until after our first mission to prove his innocence.”

Neil felt his unease grow as Renee looked equal parts disappointed and resigned at the threat implied in Andrew’s words. “Am I to assume that’s where the training comes in?”

“You can _assume_ whatever you like,” Andrew said with a dismissive sneer before turning to Dan and switching to English. “Let Monsieur Madeline tell our regular John André lurking on the staircase exactly what he’s in for.”

Neil froze as everyone collectively turned towards the stairs.

“Neil?” Dan called out hesitantly, and Neil slowly descended the rest of the staircase, internally wincing at how quickly he’d been discovered.

“How much of that did you hear?” Matt’s brow was furrowed with obvious concern.

Neil shrugged. “Kevin’s angry you won’t tell me something, but I don’t know what, and Andrew has read Les Misérables.”

Nicky let out a peal of nervous laughter at Neil’s response, while Aaron shot him a sour look. “Don’t encourage him.”

Dan sent them both a quelling look, before returning her gaze to Neil. “It’s not that we’re trying to keep you in the dark,” She started apologetically. “We didn’t want to risk scaring you off. I’m sure the events of today have done enough of that as it is.”

They had, but not for the reasons Dan assumed. “I’m fine,” Neil said. The killing and violence she was likely trying to spare him from were just another day in Neil’s life.

“Neil, it hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since you were murdered. You’re not fine.”

“He could be in shock,” Aaron added, looking interested in the conversation for the first time.

“Or just stupid,” Andrew said.

“Have none of you been listening to a word I’ve said?” Allison demanded. “The kid’s a sociopath.”

“An altruistic sociopath?” Matt’s eyebrows stretched almost to his hairline. “What kind of sociopath tackles a gunman?”

“The stupid kind,” Jean replied.

“That’s enough,” Dan interrupted. “We’re saving the full story for tomorrow and that’s final. At least let the kid sleep before dumping this on him.”

“I’m not a kid,” Neil futilely pointed out.

“None of the rest of us got this kid-glove treatment,” Kevin said, livid. “Why should we baby him? Every second he spends ignorant is a second wasted. He’s already decades behind where he needs to be!”

“He’s barely even decades old, Kevin!” Dan argued. “Now either shut up or leave, this conversation is over!”

Kevin shook his finger in Dan's direction, his face puce from the force of his anger before he silently whirled around and stalked down the hallway leading out of the house. The last thing they heard was the front door slamming with enough force to shake the house.

“Well,” Matt said in the awkward silence left in Kevin’s wake. “Who’s up for dinner?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got about two more chapters written, but for the sake of maintaining a writing schedule of any sort I'll wait to post them. Hopefully I can swing a chapter a month update schedule since I was able to write seven chapters in six months, but I can't promise anything more than my best effort.


	6. Cheering for a Fatality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I'm absolutely shocked and thrilled by the amount of attention and positive feedback this has gotten! Thank you all!!!! Since I'm trapped inside today due to a snow and ice storm, I'm posting this chapter early. Hope you all enjoy!

Sleep came easily for Neil that night. Seth had furiously made a point of refusing to sleep in the same room as him, dragging a pillow to the downstairs sectional with a vicious slew of insults. Without the intrusive sound of someone else’s breathing; the comfort of sleeping in a bed for the first time in months and his own exhaustion were able to drag Neil kicking and screaming into unconsciousness. 

His dreams were a fractured kaleidoscope of blood stained, smiling teeth, crashing ocean waves, and ravenous flames all intent on destroying him, until, with a startling abruptness, the dream changed. It had the familiar cadence of his usual dreams of the other immortals, only the face he saw wasn’t one he recognized.

She looked to be a woman in her early twenties— the average age for their group of immortals— with long, black hair tied back in a high ponytail, and intensely focused, dark eyes. She was dressed in a blue midriff baring top with word WILDCAT emblazoned across the front and a pair of matching shorts, as she stood, balanced precariously at the top of a three-person human pyramid. Arranged around her were six other such human pyramids, and Neil watched as she, and everyone else dismounted with unnerving synchronization into the expectant arms waiting below.

Katelyn Han: the name came to Neil as she performed a series of rapid handsprings across the matted floor into a concluding aerial twist, and the pounding music competed with the roaring crowd in response. The others around her shifted positions, coming together towards the middle of the floor until the array of seven pyramids was reassembled. Katelyn gave a brilliant smile as she stood above the audience on one leg, only for her smile to fade into an expression of terror, as the arms holding her up wavered, losing their grip.

The music drowned out Katelyn’s shriek, as she toppled sideways, and with a sickening motion, fell directly on her head.

**. . .**

Neil awoke with a start, covered in sweat with his heart in his mouth. He was moving before he was even fully awake, blindly digging out his journal from under the mattress. The image of Katelyn Han’s broken neck replayed on repeat in his mind’s eye, the high pitched almost carnival-like music echoing in his ears. He flipped open to the next clean page in his journal, bookmarked carelessly with a cheap pencil, and immediately set about capturing her likeness in as perfect detail as he could manage in the scant, pre-dawn light.

Neil knew he should run. Two immortals, back-to-back wasn’t possible, not unless they were twins like Aaron and Andrew. He’d made the tentative plan to stick around when he’d only had to sell his recent mortality to people determined buy it, but that plan wasn’t feasible anymore. If the others hadn’t already figured out who he really was, it would only take one conversation with Katelyn to expose him, and he needed to be gone long before that.

Mind made up, Neil abandoned the bed, and dragged his duffel bag out of the dresser drawer he’d crammed it in, before heading towards the window. From there leaving was almost too easy. His footsteps were silent across the dew-slick shingles, and the oak he’d sat under yesterday was close enough to the cabin roof that he was able to effortlessly climb it down to ground level even with the cumbersome weight of his duffel bag.

He’d made it about four steps towards the resort exit in his bid for freedom, before the strap of his duffel bag snapped, and a dull ‘thunk’ sounded behind him. Neil fell hard, tripping over his bag as it caught him in the legs, while his journal went flying out of his grasp.

He scrambled for it, only for a knife to land less than an inch away from his outstretched hand. Neil flinched at the close call, snatching his hand back, and he turned his head to trace the trajectory of the knife. Even before He caught sight of Andrew advancing on him, Neil had already known what he'd see. The naked rage on Andrew's face, however, was unexpected.

Fuck.

A quick glance to Neil's right revealed Andrew’s other knife embedded in the trunk of the oak: the reason the strap of his duffel bag had been severed. It was either a brilliant shot, or an extremely near miss depending on Andrew’s intended target, and Neil found neither option reassuring.

Neil reached for his journal a second time with a desperate conviction to keep it out of Andrew’s hands, only to gasp at the quiet agony of Andrew's boot mercilessly grinding his hand into the gravel. Neil grit his teeth against the sickening snap of bones breaking and swallowed down a groan. Through the haze of pain Neil watched helplessly as Andrew claimed both the knife and journal before lifting his foot and moving to retrieve the other knife from where it was buried to the hilt in the tree. Neil cradled his hand against his chest, refusing to watch the nauseating process of bones and ligaments returning to their original state.

“What the fuck was that?!” Neil hissed, the second he found his voice, rage lending an edge to the words. “Are you _fucking insane_?”

Andrew yanked the knife from the oak in one smooth motion, looking more concerned with the blade’s sharpness than Neil’s question, before sheathing it in one of his bracers alongside the first knife. It was a moment before he finally turned to face Neil.

“Are _you?_ ” Andrew drawled. “Tell me, how much did Riko pay you to come spy on us? I can’t imagine it was cheap with such a high potential for failure.”

Neil stared at him in disbelief, completely at a loss for words. Andrew may as well have spouted gibberish for all the sense he made. “Who the fuck is Riko?”

Andrew looked unimpressed. “Playing dumb is more likely to make me murder you, not less.”

“I’m not half as scared of you as you imagine,” Neil said, hauling himself to his feet. “Now either tell me who Riko is, or don’t, but give me back my shit.”

“Why?” Andrew challenged. “In a hurry?”

Neil lunged for his journal but drew up short when he felt the cold bite of steel against his throat. He raised his hands in surrender, staring hatefully down into Andrew’s suspicious eyes as the knife drew a line of blood from where it was pressed firmly against his neck. Andrew’s draw was impossibly fast.

“Are you going to kill me?” Neil asked, tilting his chin up defiantly and baring his neck.

“Are you going to come back if I do? Tell me, are you actually one of us, or have Riko’s experiments finally yielded success?”

Neil swallowed down his frustration at the situation at hand and searched for a sense of patience he didn’t have “I told you before,” he said slowly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, or who Riko is.”

“Convincing,” Andrew said, adding pressure to the blade against Neil’s throat. “But your actions don’t match your words. If you weren’t running back to your master with your tail between your legs, where were you running off to?”

“Anywhere away from the traveling circus inside. I was tired of having their knife juggler at my throat.”

Andrew’s eyes darkened with rage. “Oh, you—”

The front door swung open with a loud bang, cutting off Andrew’s response to reveal an almost frantic looking Dan. Her searching gaze immediately landed on the two of them, and Andrew sheathed his knife almost too quickly to follow.

“Hello, Captain,” he called out with false cheer. “Come to rally the troops?”

Neil subtly wiped the blood from his neck as Dan made her way over and bent down to retrieve his duffel bag.

“What’s going on here?” Dan demanded looking back and forth between Neil and Andrew. “Neil, we thought you’d disappeared, your room was empty, and the window was open. What happened?”

“I was going for a run,” he lied, regretting his impulsive decision to leave more and more with every passing minute.

Dan looked him up and down with a skeptical expression, likely noting Neil's lack of athletic clothes, and the presence of his duffel bag, and Andrew surprisingly said nothing to contradict him.

“A run,” Dan repeated. “You climbed out of a second story window to go for a run?" she paused just long enough to make her disbelief apparent. "Where exactly does Andrew factor into this?”

“He was curious about where I was going.” 

Dan didn’t look as though she bought it. “So, Andrew _wasn’t_ chasing you off with threats of bodily harm?”

Neil looked back and forth between Dan and Andrew, waiting for Andrew to defend himself. Andrew, however, looked as though he were watching a particularly entertaining car crash, and made no move to interfere.

“No,” Neil finally answered.

“No?”

“No, he was persuading me to stay.”

This time it was Dan’s turn to look back and forth between the two of them in disbelief. “And why would he do that?”

“We hadn’t gotten that far.” 

Dan finally settled her gaze fully on Andrew. “You expect me to believe this?”

Andrew flashed a very wide, very fake smile. “Of course,” he assured her. “In fact, he even agreed to help me retrieve the new girl.”

“That’s a _terrible_ idea,” Dan objected.

Andrew looked unconcerned. “We can bring Jean and Renee if you’re so desperate for a pair of training wheels.”

“Absolutely not, that's—” Dan's objection died as she appeared to think it over, “...not an altogether terrible extraction team.” She turned to Neil. “You really agreed to this?”

No.

“Yes.” Neil did his best to inject confidence into his tone. If he wanted his journal back, he was going to have to go along with Andrew’s plan. A plan that was almost certainly going to end poorly for him, but he’d burn that bridge when he got to it.

“You don’t have to go. No one expects this of you, especially not after yesterday.”

“It’s fine," Neil said instinctively. "I want to go.”

“You’re sure?”

“He already said he was,” Andrew interrupted. “The more time you spend interrogating him, the less time we have to rescue the cheerleader.”

Neil swallowed down the bitter urge to point out Andrew’s hypocrisy. “He’s right, Katelyn died too publicly to wait any longer. I alerted the feds to the possibility of immortality yesterday, which means they know exactly what they’re looking at, and how quickly she’s capable of disappearing. She’s in far more danger than I ever was.”

Andrew and Dan both looked at him wearing matching expressions of shock.

“A surprising piece of insight from the infant,” Andrew mused aloud. “If I didn’t know any better I’d ask who fed you that line.”

“How’d you know her name?” Dan asked, too curious to bother scolding Andrew.

Neil shrugged, uncomfortable under their combined scrutiny and reluctant to incriminate himself. “It was in the dream,” he replied, wishing Matt had said more on the subject.

The names of the other immortals were always in the first dreams. Katelyn’s death had been shorter than the others: there’d been nothing of the aftermath or location, and it’d had a sense of urgency that the others had lacked. As though the bond they shared was drawing him to her like the tightening of a noose. 

Judging by Dan’s baffled expression, this was not the case for everyone.

“You got her name from the dream just like that?”

Neil couldn’t tell her that a name was usually the least of the information he got from his dreams, so he decided to play dumb.

“You all knew my name, how is this any different?”

“That’s not…” Dan trailed off and shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Never mind, there’s too much going on right now to focus on that. You were right about needing to retrieve Katelyn as fast as possible.” She paused to give him another searching look. “You ready for your trial by fire, kid?”

Retrieving Katelyn was going to be the easy part of this mission. Neil spared a glance for Andrew, who was staring at him as though he were a particularly interesting specimen to be dissected.

Neil swallowed his trepidation.

“Yes.”

**. . .**

“She’s in Plano, Texas.”

Neil hadn't even set foot in the cabin, his hand still holding open the screen door when he came chest to chest with Kevin. Kevin, who was standing in the doorway and blocking the way, his arms crossed and his face pale and drawn, despite the furious expression in place. Neil wondered if every conversation today was going to be an interrogation, while behind him Andrew and Dan stood in watchful silence.

“That’s not too far from here,” Neil finally offered, figuring the 'she' in question was Katelyn. 

“She’s not running,” Kevin continued, refusing to budge. “Why isn’t she running?”

Neil struggled not to roll his eyes at Kevin’s childish petulance and refusal to let him into the house. “There wasn’t any blood, and denial is an easy crutch. I’m sure she’s convinced herself nothing happened.”

He’d seen it before in Nicky, who’d walked away from his long fall into the canyons of the Sierra Madres citing luck, and Seth who had convinced himself his smallpox casualty was a fever borne delusion. So long as there was a plausible chance of survival, the new immortals would latch onto it with both hands.

“What about you, Neil?” Andrew asked, leaning in close to Neil’s shoulder. “You hit the ground running; denial not an issue for you?”

He suppressed a shiver at the feeling of Andrew’s breath against his neck. “I left it behind at a crime scene alongside a liter of blood.”

“Andrew,” Dan said sharply.

“Relax, Captain. Pinocchio over here is made of wood, not glass. He can take a few psychological hits.”

Neil had finally had enough. He roughly shouldered past Kevin, ignoring his offended protests, and started down the hall towards the main room, away from his provocateur. Andrew seemed determined to push, and prod, and dissect him until he cracked, and Neil didn’t trust himself not to respond in kind. Whatever suspicions Andrew harbored were far off the mark, but Neil didn’t need to give him more evidence to build a case against him. Especially not when Andrew held the key to the truth in his hands.

Neil was greeted with the sight of six very bedraggled immortals sprawled across the furniture of the sitting room, and a very alert-looking Renee fixing coffee in the kitchen. She was the first to notice his presence and waved him over. Neil forced himself to comply with no small amount of reluctance. He’d already survived Andrew. Renee at least was less likely to mug him at knifepoint.

“Good morning,” she said once Neil was close enough to conduct a quiet conversation.

“Morning,” He replied, matching her hushed tone, and accepting the cup of black coffee she handed him.

“There’s milk in the fridge and sugar in the cabinet, if you need it.”

Neil nodded his appreciation. “This is fine, thank you.” He took a scalding gulp, letting the bitter taste push his fear of Renee to the back of his mind. In the morning light, with her white hair frizzy from the humidity, wearing sleep rumpled pajamas, she hardly resembled someone to be afraid of.

“What’s with the others?” he asked, gesturing towards everyone’s prone forms in the sitting room.

Renee stirred her own coffee, lightened with a generous amount of milk. “Has anyone explained the dreams to you?” She asked after a moment of contemplative silence.

Neil shrugged noncommittally, unfazed by the non-sequitur and trying not to look too interested. “It was largely glossed over.”

Renee nodded, looking unsurprised. “It’s hard to explain them properly since they vary so wildly from person to person. Not even Andrew and Aaron experience them the same way.”

Neil searched out Aaron and found him hunched over, squinting angrily against the watery light of dawn, as though it caused him physical pain. He looked back at Renee with sudden comprehension. “The dreams have side-affects.”

Renee nodded. “For some of us, the younger ones more so. Allison and Jean are fine; Allison just isn’t a morning person, and Jean fell back asleep after his morning prayer. Kevin, however, is only walking around because he drinks his side-affects away.”

Neil opened his mouth to ask about Andrew, only for the man in question to enter the sitting room, looking darkly amused by everyone’s misfortune.

“Looks like you won the bet, Fullo,” He announced to Renee with far more volume than necessary.

A chorus of groans erupted in response, and Renee briefly raised a warning finger to her lips.

“Which one?” She asked, while pouring a third cup of coffee.

Andrew stalked into the kitchen, Neil’s journal tucked securely under his arm.

“The one about the mouse in our warren.”

Renee looked to Neil, her gaze getting caught on his duffel bag, and Neil was able to uneasily infer the bet had something to do with him. She handed Andrew the steaming mug of coffee. “I assume the ‘I told you so’ is unnecessary?” 

Andrew accepted the coffee, before procuring a sugar tin from the cabinet. “You’re the one who insists on _assuming_ things, might as well.”

“You still haven’t told me what you have against that word.”

Andrew waved her away irritably. “No, but I have told to mind your own,” He rummaged through a drawer near his hip, before grabbing a spoon, and ladling an obscene amount of sugar into his coffee. “You’ll get your usual payment once we get back.”

“We?” Renee asked, her dark eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Where are we going?”

“The three of us and Jean Valjean are going to rescue the cheerleader. Pack your bags now, or Dan will have to chain up Kevin in the yard to get him to sit and stay.”

Renee looked concerned, her knuckles paling at the tight grip she had on her mug. “This is the second death dream in two days. He’s lucky he’s not bleeding out the eyes again.”

Andrew snorted into his coffee, before shot gunning the whole thing. “Try telling him that. He was still arguing with Dan when I excused myself. Someone needs to reconfigure our human GPS.”

Renee took a fortifying sip of her own coffee, before turning her gaze towards Neil. “Are we really taking Neil?” She asked, and he did his best to disguise his apprehension at the shrewd once over she gave him.

“I’ve got new reading material, so he gets to play getaway driver,” Andrew tapped the cover of Neil’s journal twice, and Neil suppressed his irritation with difficulty.

He didn’t think anyone other than Renee would object if he gave into the urge to strangle the smug look off Andrew’s face, but the thought of having Renee as an enemy was enough to quell Neil’s ire. The sight of Andrew holding onto several lifetimes of his research was an almost unbearable violation, however, and the urge to pay him back lingered.

“When are we leaving?” he asked, cramming his anger into the same corner of his mind he’d shoved his fear of Renee.

Andrew gestured towards the sitting room. “Go wake up Jean and we can leave immediately.”

Neil didn’t trust the amused glint in Andrew’s eyes and was saved from doing something monumentally stupid by Renee, who threw out an arm to block his way.

“Let me do that,” she said. “It’s safer if it’s someone he knows.”

Andrew shrugged at Neil’s accusing scowl and they both stood back as Renee went to wake up Jean.

Neil watched curiously as Renee crouched down next to the sectional where Jean was napping and murmured something to him in French too quiet to be translated. Despite Renee’s delicate approach, Jean still woke up with a panicked start, throwing a blind punch in Renee’s direction, which she blocked with ease.

Jean seemed to take stock of his surroundings as the panic faded from his expression and he looked confused to see Renee kneeling beside him.

“What has happened?” he asked her in French. “Do we have more information on the girl?”

Renee shook her head and stood up. “Not yet. Andrew wants you to help with the extraction. Dan already approved it.”

Jean cracked his neck, before hauling himself to his feet. “Just us three?”

“No, he wants to bring our newest addition.” Renee looked more troubled by that admission than she had in English, and Jean looked equally unenthused.

“If I lose to Allison because he murders the kid this early, I’m making him foot the cost.”

“Good luck,” Renee wished him, looking sincere, before switching back to English. “Are you ready?”

Jean nodded and patted down his back pockets, before turning to Andrew. “Keys?” he asked, holding up an expectant hand.

Neil watched as Andrew dug them out of his pocket only to jerk in surprise as hot coffee sloshed out of his cup and down his arm, the keys disappearing into the depths of his cup. Neil looked at his now-ruined coffee, and then back at Andrew, the rage from before coming back full force. The only thing keeping him from upending the cup over Andrew’s head was the journal tucked under his elbow. With no other outlet for his rage, Neil settled for bringing the mug to his lips and drinking around the keys, maintaining spiteful eye-contact with an amused looking Andrew.

“Looks like I’m driving,” he told Jean once he’d retrieved the keys from the bottom of the empty cup. By the lack of a key fob, Neil was willing to bet they were a spare.

Jean stared back and forth between the pair of them, looking as though he couldn’t figure out who was the bigger idiot. Neil sympathized with him but did nothing to explain himself.

“We’re all going to die,” Jean finally grumbled, while Renee rubbed his shoulder soothingly.

_No_ , Neil thought with a bitter glance in Andrew’s direction. _Just me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two chapters are going to be a bit more plot heavy and hopefully answer some questions. I've got some more action heavy chapters outlined for the near future, but things are a bit slow going development wise since its only been a day in narrative time. I'm really hoping to get the next chapter out in a month, provided work doesn't run me ragged, so fingers crossed!


	7. Truth or Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just when I think I've got the whole update schedule figured out, three of my coworkers quit all in one month and the schedule goes to hell. This chapter's about half of what I wanted it to be, cause I've been at work nonstop, but I'm still thrilled by the response this has gotten so far and I just wanna thank you all for the support!

Andrew’s car was infuriatingly easy to drive. Neil’s experience driving was admittedly limited, but even he could see the allure behind having the low rumble of such a powerful engine under his complete control. A car he was determined to hate for half a dozen practical reasons shouldn’t be able to endear itself to him with one drive. Not when the ease of driving left Neil entirely too much time to focus on the man next him.

Andrew had taken the front passenger seat, propping his feet up on the dashboard, while thumbing slowly through Neil’s journal. He would occasionally lean forward to change the radio station, always settling on something loud and percussive, that matched Neil’s own racing pulse. Every page that Andrew flipped without a visible reaction left Neil more and more certain that he’d be adding another death to his tally.

He wondered if damage control was an option. Whatever it was they weren’t telling him posed enough danger to scare a group of indestructible immortals, and Andrew suspected Neil was a part of it. As loathe as Neil was to come clean, it would at least derail whatever backstory Andrew had constructed for him.

Neil switched lanes, maneuvering around the glacially slow station wagon he’d been stuck behind. He spared a look for Jean and Renee in the rear view mirror, but they were still engrossed in their respective distractions. Jean appeared to be listening to a book on tape, his head tilted back against the headrest, and eyes glued to the moving horizon. Renee was absorbed in what Neil was almost certain was nålebinding; rapidly weaving together a hat with a single large-eyed, ivory needle and a skein of yarn.

The sound of another page being turned drew Neil’s attention back to the front of the car, and he felt his knuckles creak as he clenched the steering wheel at the unwanted reminder. He consciously forced himself to relax and keep his eyes on the road rather than Andrew. Without the station wagon to contend with, he accelerated the car until he was keeping pace the occasional solitary driver on the interstate, openly flouting the speed limit.

Neil wondered absently if they’d make it in time. They weren’t even an hour into the estimated thirteen-hour car ride, and he was already convinced that they’d be too late to save Katelyn. Something about the dream also sat wrong with him. The way she’d died had to have been public, and yet they’d all received the dream in the early hours of the morning without a time-zone difference to explain it. Either Katelyn hadn’t died yet and the dream had been a warning, or they’d received the dream far too late to be of any help.

Neil mulled it over, considering the two options, and going back over the events of the dream. In the end it came back to the details and the underlying urgency of the bond connecting them. He’d thought it was unusual before, but his panic and Andrew’s suspicions had kept him sufficiently distracted. The death dreams, for all they seemed to vary wildly for everyone else, were always consistent for him. For every immortal he’d glimpsed their surrounding countries, heard their spoken languages, and seen the events leading up to their deaths in full. He’d known their names, their emotions, witnessed the way they’d fought for their lives, and had seen what became of their bodies.

Katelyn Han, however, may as well have been a stranger, another face in a crowd for all the information he’d gotten from her dream, and Neil had never felt such a need to seek out one of the others. It would have all the makings of a trap, were it not for the fact that being an immortal wasn’t something that could be forged. If Katelyn was still alive, if the dream had yet to happen, then something had changed, and Neil was willing to bet it had something to do with whoever Riko was.

Neil looked at Andrew out of the corner of his eye weighing the risk of saying something. If Riko was involved, Neil didn’t know anything substantial enough to stand against him. Andrew did, but the way he suspected Neil’s involvement meant Neil would have to tread lightly.

“Andrew.” Neil kept his voice low without being obvious about it.

Andrew sent him an unimpressed side-eye. “What?”

Neil searched for a way to explain without making himself seem more suspicious, and then abruptly gave up. He’d stop being suspicious to Andrew the second he drew his final breath, and not a moment before.

“The dream about Katelyn wasn’t in real time, was it?”

Andrew turned fully towards him; his eyes sharp with appraisal. “And what exactly would you know about that?”

Neil threw a quick glance in the rear view mirror to double check they weren’t being overheard, only to see both Jean and Renee staring curiously at him.

_Fuck._

Neil forced himself to ignore the scrutiny and amended what he was going to say. “She died in front of a large crowd at a public event,” he explained. “It couldn’t have been four in the morning.”

Andrew made an impatient hand gesture for him to continue.

“Kevin was also convinced that she should’ve been running.”

“And you told him that she was just convinced nothing had happened,” Andrew reminded him, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What if it hasn’t?” Neil returned. “Matt said you got my name off my license, but I wasn’t mugged until after I died. The dream about Katelyn ended the second she fell, that can’t be normal.”

Andrew turned to share a loaded look with Renee, before returning his gaze to Neil. “You think the dream was a premonition.”

“I think we’re walking into a fight,” Neil amended, “Whatever bond connects us, I think it’s trying to protect Katelyn.”

Andrew stared at him for a long moment and Neil recognized the look in his eyes all too well. It was a deadened, feral look. The sort of look a dog got from being beaten one too many times.

“The bond doesn’t care about us. We're a means to an end; pawns in whatever convoluted game fate is playing, and nothing more. If we got the dream early then it’s because the bond’s in danger, not the cheerleader.”

Neil held Andrew’s gaze, the depths of the unexpected honesty too jarring to take in stride. It was only with considerable effort that he was able to push through it. “How would Katelyn’s discovery have any effect on the bond?” He asked.

Silence reigned uncomfortably in the wake of his question, until Jean let out a long sigh. “Twelve is an auspicious number,” He suggested reluctantly in a way that sounded rote. Like he was quoting someone or reading a script. “If Riko kills her before we get to her, it could have a destabilizing effect.”

Renee looked like she was struggling not to react through tremendous effort, and shook her head; her white hair swaying in the reflection of the rear view mirror.

“No,” she told Jean gently, “I don’t think that’s it.”

Neil felt the demand to know who Riko was linger on the tip of his tongue. It would be easy to ask. Andrew might be tight-lipped on the subject, but yesterday Renee and Jean had argued for telling Neil what was going on. He didn’t think they’d refuse him any answers now that the stakes had been raised. The only thing stopping him was the journal in Andrew’s possession, and the way he’d accused Neil of working for Riko. Asking the wrong question now could easily provoke Andrew into voicing an accusation, and with how close the Renee and Jean seemed to him, Neil didn’t bother to hope he’d be given a chance to explain himself.

Neil let his question go unvoiced and turned his attention back to the man who’d handicapped him so easily. Andrew had taken an unnerving interest in the passing road signs. Considering he'd expressed interest in little aside from threatening Neil, there was little chance of it boding well for him.

“Take this next exit,” Andrew said after a moment, his cadence too carefully level to match the apathetic tone he used. 

Neil didn’t bother arguing, knowing it would only earn him a knife to the face. He mutinously switched lanes and took the exit ramp off the interstate.

“Now what?”

“You’re pulling over, and I’m making a phone call.”

Neil clenched his jaw painfully to keep the incredulity out of his tone. “How does that do anything to help us right now?”

Andrew looked annoyed by the question, his mouth curling in derision. “I hear too much talking, and not enough pulling over. Hasn’t anyone told you children should be seen and not heard?”

“I’m starting to believe you’ve never actually met a child.” Neil pulled into the deserted parking lot of a run-down convenience store, “Is there a reason we had to pull over for this?”

“Seen and not heard,” Andrew repeated, while holding out an expectant hand.

Neil looked at Andrew’s hand and then up at his face, unimpressed with the silent demand. “What?”

“Keys.”

Neil cut the engine and pulled the keys free of the ignition, dropping them unceremoniously in Andrew’s outstretched hand before he could consider putting them through his teeth instead.

Andrew spun them once around his index finger with, and then let himself out of the car without another word. Neil watched him go with a growing feeling of dread. The smartest choice would involve staying put and waiting for Andrew to return. Unfortunately, Neil was not known for his smart choices.

With a fatalistic sense of resignation, Neil unbuckled his seat belt and followed Andrew, cutting off a warning from Jean as he slammed the car door shut.

The sun was still lingering at the edge of the horizon, impossibly early for how late in the day it felt, and Neil let the cool morning breeze wash over him as he followed Andrew and made his way around the back of the building. Wisteria and kudzu strangled the pathetic copse of trees shading the back entrance, while Spanish moss hung in grey swaths from what little of the branches remained uncovered. Andrew stood a pale, solitary figure amongst the foliage and the crumbling brick work. He immediately zeroed in on Neil and the glare he sent him could’ve melted iron.

“Tell me, are you actively suicidal, or just stupid?” Andrew’s question was punctuated by the knife he drew.

Neil felt his jaw clench, but otherwise didn’t react to the question, instead keeping his eyes on Andrew’s knife. Andrew had been quick to use it on Seth but had yet to seriously use it against him. Neil didn’t know if that was for lack of opportunity or because he was waiting to make the lesson truly stick, but he figured he was about to find out. Andrew’s eyes promised violence, and Neil knew better than to hope he wouldn’t follow through.

The silence felt as though it stretched on forever before Andrew’s curiosity appeared to get the better of him.

“Why are you here?”

Neil crossed his arms. “I need answers.”

Andrew clicked his tongue, a mocking edge curdling in his tone. “You don’t _need_ answers. You _want_ them. The question here is: do you want them enough to pay for them?”

“What’s your preferred currency? Blood?”

Andrew’s smile wouldn’t look out of place on a shark. “It’s not payment if I take it by force.”

Neil lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed. “What then?”

“You and I are going to do an exchange; You don’t get your answers until I get mine.”

“And if you don’t like the answers I give you?” Neil challenged.

Andrew flipped the knife in his hand. “Is that your first question?”

Neil scowled. “No.”

“Good. Because it’s my turn.” Andrew pulled Neil’s journal out from under his arm and held it up. “Where did you get this?”

“I made it.” The words tasted like sand in his mouth, and he half expected a levied accusation followed by a knife in his chest. Andrew, however, remained true to his word, and waited patiently for Neil’s question.

“Who’s Riko?”

Andrew looked irritated by his question, but not surprised. “Riko is a federal agent, not unlike our pet turncoat. Long story short, he wants us all dead and has the tools to make it stick.”

Neil felt his blood turn to ice at that pronouncement. He was sorely tempted to demand more information but managed to hold his tongue as he waited for Andrew to ask a question.

“Who gave you the information to make your stalker profile?”

Neil scowled as the dig hit home. “I gathered the information myself,” he summarized, “You said Riko can permanently kill us; how?”

Andrew looked uninterested in his agitation. “Riko is a scientist. Or he has scientists on his payroll, same difference in the end. He’s got a pill, a serum, a formula; whatever you want to call it, it stops the healing process until it clears our system.” He paused to let that sink in before continuing.

“The leather binding on this journal alone is easily older than Nicky, you’ve got primary sources in here that predate the fall of the roman empire, and the drawing of Katelyn is done in the same hand as the rest of the portraits. Either you lied to me about the journal being yours, or you lied to everyone else about your identity. Which is it?”

“The journal is mine and I didn’t lie to anyone,” Neil felt compelled to point out, “You all drew the wrong conclusions, and I didn’t correct you.”

“Lying by omission is still lying.”

Neil snorted. “Then honesty is a farce.”

Andrew flipped his knife again, a threat woven into the glinting motion of the blade. “Ask your question.”

“How do you know Riko is actually a threat? Alcohol and sleep deprivation are enough to slow down the healing process, but that doesn’t make either of those things lethal.”

Andrew had a look about him as though he were seizing up an opponent he’d only just stopped underestimating. “He had access to a pair of live test subjects for the better part of a year, and we got to see the effects firsthand during the jailbreak.”

Neil fought through the visceral horror that kicked his pulse into overdrive, already calculating who it could’ve been that Riko experimented on. “It was Kevin and Jean,” he said numbly, remembering their strange reactions to Nicky’s offhand comment about a lab, “wasn’t it?”

“It’s not your turn. What wrong conclusions did we draw?”

Neil scowled at the rebuke. “You assumed I was new, like Katelyn.”

“And you’re not.” It wasn’t a question.

Neil answered it all the same. “No. How did Riko capture Jean and Kevin?”

Andrew’s expression darkened, the danger present chilling him to the bone. “We had a traitor,” He said in the same awful tone he’d used to taunt Seth after he’d killed him.

Neil kept a closer eye on Andrew’s knife, resisting the urge to shield his throat as he waited for Andrew’s next question.

“How is it that none of us knew about your existence?”

Of all the questions Andrew could’ve asked, he chose the one Neil couldn’t answer. It was the one he’d been asking himself since they’d failed to recognize him. “I don’t know.” he answered, letting bravado fill in the cracks in his information. “When you showed up to break my ribs, I’d assumed you all had tracked me down knowing who I was.”

“And you didn’t correct us because you weren’t staying,” Andrew filled in, unrepentant despite Neil’s dig.

“No. Not until Matt said the dreams stopped once you met the others.”

Neil didn’t like the sharp glint in Andrew’s eyes as he opened his mouth to speak.

“You only stayed because you could no longer spy on us from a distance.”

The accusation struck Neil firmly in the chest, the truth of it painful when laid out so baldly. Andrew had drawn the right conclusion for the wrong reason. Before Neil could defend himself, however, a shrill ringtone shattered the silence.

Andrew stared down at his phone for a moment, looking annoyed by the interruption and the final warning glare he shot Neil made it clear this was far from resolved.

“What?” Andrew demanded as he held the flip phone in front of his face. The crackling of the phone’s subpar speaker was audible from where Neil stood.

Jean’s voice echoed through the air, sounding tinny and distorted. “I wouldn’t interrupt your homicide if it weren’t important, but Dan just called.”

“And what does our fearless leader have to say?”

“We finally got word from Wymack; he’s got a mission for us.”

Andrew looked bored at the pronouncement. “Is there a point, or have you decided to pursue your true calling as a secretary?”

There was a wave of static over the speakers as Jean sighed on the other end. “He let Kevin talk him into picking us up after we retrieve Katelyn. We’ve only got a few hours before he does it himself and backtracks for us.”

Andrew went still, his expression inscrutably blank. “One would think that if Kevin wanted me to care so much, he wouldn’t stab me in the back this soon after I show interest.”

“Or he remembers what happened last time you showed interest.”

Andrew considered Jean’s words as he sheathed his knife and dug out his car keys.

“Just so long as he knows he’s paying for my next car. I’ve seen our pig’s helicopter; there’s no cargo hold.”

“I’m sure he’ll love that,” Jean replied sourly. “Just hurry up or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

There was a click as the line went dead and Andrew snapped the phone shut with an amount of force that implied considerable suppressed rage. He turned his gaze on Neil, looking as though he’d mapped out the fastest way to kill him, and the only obstacle was the amount of effort it would take.

“After this mission, we’re going to take a trip, just you and I,” Andrew promised, and Neil remembered all too well the conversation with Renee he’d overheard. “I’d suggest getting your story straight, because you’re spilling your guts one way or another.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spring break is coming up, and most of my coworkers are taking it off, so I have no idea when I'm going to find time to write. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can have the next chapter up in a month, but it may not be until late April/early May.


End file.
